Second Chances
by Artemis De Nacho
Summary: St.John Allerdyce was the weird kid in the ugly house.He was the lost son that jumped the fence and shacked up with the dark side.Now he’s back,& he is given second chances.Question is:will he be too busy being a brooding bastard to see it?-Discontinued-
1. June 29, 1993 – Sydney, Australia

**Author's Note:** I have tweaked the timeline. Bear with me.  
English is also not my mother tongue, so when or if you review, please don't hesitate to prod me with the sharp end of the grammar stick. Constructive criticism is always welcome.  
**Warnings:** X3 spoilers, language, possible violence. Possible fluff. Possible angst. Okay, what the hell, you might see a trained monkey wearing a fez. I'm leaving all doors open.  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own X-Men. Not the comics, nor the movies or the TV-series. If I did, Pyro would have his own gig. Moody theme song and all. 

I do, however, own my characters Eden, Gabriel, Mary (and her husband David) McKenna. So there.

Short start. Chapters get longer.

* * *

**June 29, 1993 – Sydney, Australia**

They hadn't even been in the new house for a day and already he could hear them arguing over the kitchen sink. Digging his hands around in the cardboard box that had been labelled 'John's toys', he didn't bother paying any attention to what the brouhaha was about this time around. Finding one of his dented Hot Wheels and a Lego soldier with half his printed face scratched off, he got off the living room floor and trudged out through the open front door.

"_I asked you about this months ago and you said you had it covered!"_

"_I've been busy!"_

"_Yeah, busy screwing Marcia---"_

"_Oh shut the bloody hell up already! Marcia has got nothing to do with this!" _

John didn't know who Marcia was. Sometimes, he wasn't even sure if his mom knew who Marcia was. His dad had once said that Marcia didn't even exist, so maybe his mom was just making things up. Why she'd do that, he didn't know. Because all the Marcia-talk seemed to do was to cause even more fights. And he definitely didn't see why anyone would want any more of that.

But as he stood there, in their naked front yard, he couldn't care less about the muffled shouting coming from inside their new house. Looking down the street, he noticed how all the other houses were a lot nicer than theirs. They had new paint on the walls, trimmed hedges and shiny cars parked in their garages.

John's new house didn't have a garage. John's family barely even had a car.

Pulling the Lego soldier's head off with his teeth to fit the little yellow man inside the Hot Wheel car, John walked out through the hole in the worn-down fence where a gate used to hang, and flopped himself down on the warm sidewalk.

"Hello!"

John looked up from dragging his toy car along a crack in the concrete. In front of him stood a boy with a clean white t-shirt, a pair of green shorts and a pair of scabs on each of his knees. The boy was looking down at him with a curious smile.

"Hi," John replied, pushing his mop of brown hair out of his eyes as he squinted against the Australian sun that shone directly above the other boy's head, making his dark auburn hair look like it was on fire.

"You just moved in?" the other boy asked.

John glanced to his right, at their new house with the pale green paint chipping off the façade.

"Yeah," he answered, feeling a little awkward since he was still sitting down.

"I'm Gabriel," the boy said, putting a thumb to his chest, "And that's my sister Eden." He pointed behind him, to a girl their age that John hadn't noticed. Her hair was the same dark auburn colour as her brother's. It was longer though, and she wore it in two neat pigtails on either side of her head.

"We live right there," Gabriel added, pointing to the house right next to John's. He blandly noted that is was nicer than theirs.

"Okay," John said, simply because he couldn't think of anything better.

"So what's your name?" Gabriel asked, since he apparently found John interesting even though he didn't say that much.

"St John…Allerdyce." John added his last name, just to have said something more.

"So people call you Saint?" Gabriel wondered.

"No." John almost sounded offended. "Just John."

"People call us Gabby and Eddie. Our mom says it's funny because it makes me sound like a girl and my sister like a boy. But we don't mind."

John leaned to the side to look at Eden who was drawing a big yellow sun on the sidewalk with an oversized bit of chalk. She looked up to meet his eyes with a glare.

"What's wrong with her?" John asked, looking back at Gabriel.

The other boy shrugged, pulling out a toy car from his pocket before sitting down with him.

"Nothing. She just doesn't like boys. They have cooties."

"But you're a boy," John pointed out.

"I know. But I'm her brother, I don't count."

John looked past Gabriel again. Eden, or 'Eddie', was adding what looked like a shark right next to her sun. Even if Gabriel said that there was nothing wrong with her, she sure seemed odd enough to John.


	2. March 12, 1998 – Sydney, Australia

**March 12, 1998 – Sydney, Australia**

John shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he waited for someone to answer the door. He really needed to pee. He would have gone at home, but his mother was currently occupying their only bathroom. She'd been in there for over an hour and her answer to his 'Mom, are you okay?' had been a coughed hurl and the sound of something splashing into the toilet bowl.

Stepping over the empty bottles and stained kitchen towels that littered the hallway, John had gone outside in hopes of being able to take a leak in the back yard. Unfortunately, Mrs Irwin's head bobbed around above the hedge between their houses that his own family completely neglected. She had scowled at him the second he'd come scurrying around the corner, snapping her scissors a little more viciously as her beady little eyes followed his every move.

If there was anything that could motivate him to hold it in just a little longer, it was definitely the prospects of Mrs Irwin watching him pee.

So he went next door – the other door – to Gabby and Eddie.

His bladder reminding him of the urgency at hand, he rang the doorbell one more time just before the door opened in front of him.

"HiMrsMcKenna! CouldIpleaseuseyourbathroomforjustoneminuteIreallyneedtopee."

Mrs McKenna, a short but very pretty – if you asked John – woman with dark brown hair and kind greenish eyes, blinked at him for a moment.

"Right. Of course! Just come on in, John." She stepped aside, gesturing for him to enter when his two breaths of rushed words had sunk in.

The brown-haired boy from the pale green house made a mad dash for the hallway toilet, shouting his thanks as the door slammed shut behind him.

John liked the McKenna's toilet. Actually, he liked their entire house. It was welcoming and always nice and clean.

On the spotless edge of the sink to his right, stood a small vase with slightly drooping flowers. He recognized them from the McKenna's backyard. The only things that grew in John's family's backyard were weeds and the odd colourful flower that had snuck through the broken fence from the McKenna's (he reckoned that even Mrs Irwin's flowers were too stuck-up to venture over to their side).

Deciding to ask his mother if maybe they could do something nice to their backyard, he gave his Little John a shake before washing his hands with the soap that smelled like the hugs that Mrs McKenna gave him when he was younger. But ever since Gabriel had said that it wasn't okay for moms to hug his friends, now that they were old (ten was half a lifetime older than five), she'd been very sparse with the hugs.

One time, when Gabriel wasn't looking, Mrs McKenna had given John a hug anyway. John didn't tell Gabriel about it, but that was the reason to why he was so happy for the rest of that week.

Coming out from the toilet and carefully shutting the door after himself, he saw Mrs McKenna – whose real name was Mary, but he never dared call her that – in the kitchen, putting some cookies onto a plate.

"Thanks for letting me use your toilet, Mrs McKenna," John said, giving her a small wave of his hand before turning to leave.

"Don't you want to stay for some milk and cookies, John? I've just called down Eddie. Why don't you keep us company."

Mary McKenna smiled at him. She smiled with her entire face – no, her entire body seemed to smile. She was wearing a white apron with light blue ruffles around the edges, her brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. She looked like a mother was supposed to look like. At least if you asked John. Happy, clean and offering cookies – that was a real mother.

"Um, okay," he finally answered, shuffling into the kitchen, happy that he'd at least had the decency to kick off his shoes before he rushed inside.

Climbing into one of the high chairs that stood around the kitchen counter, he said his thanks as Mrs McKenna pushed a glass off milk in front of him.

"Hello John," came a small, hoarse voice from somewhere behind him.

He turned around to see Eden come walking to join them, her face rather indifferent to his presence. John had learned that Eden wasn't the kind of kid that really said anything unless she found it necessary. She wasn't like her twin brother Gabriel, who talked just for the hell of it. She didn't mean to seem unfriendly, people just automatically thought she was being unfriendly because she didn't like to talk that much.

John had become better friends with Gabriel, simply because Gabriel made a greater effort at befriending him. But he didn't mind Eden. She didn't give him any reason to dislike her (him not being the most talkative kid either), so he just settled for what was left: to like her. A simple man's (or ten-year-old boy's) logic.

"I like your dress," John said, wiping off his milk moustache with the back of his hand.

Eden McKenna looked down at her pale yellow summer dress with small daffodils lining the bottom hem.

"Hm. Thank you," she said, sounding a little surprised that he liked it.

Sitting up on the chair across the counter from John, Eden didn't notice the knowing smile her mother gave them.

"Where's Gabby?" John asked, halfway into his oversized chocolate cookie with green icing forming a happy face.

"He's sick," Eden answered, chewing slowly on her own cookie.

"What's he got?" he then asked conversationally, once again using his hand as a napkin to rid himself of any stray crumbs.

"I don't know." Eden shrugged, swallowing. "What's Gabby got, mom?"

The two children turned to Mrs McKenna who was suddenly looking very uncomfortable. Her fingers were worrying with the light blue ruffle of her apron, her jaw tight and her eyes flickering between John's dark blue and Eden's emerald green.

"Your…your brother's just got…He's just got a little fever, darling. He'll be playing with you again before you know it."

John and Eden nodded, satisfied with the answer.

"Do you want to play with me, John? While we wait for Gabby?"

Eden looked at John expectantly, almost hopefully.

John shrugged.

"Yeah, sure."

He really didn't see any reason why not to.


	3. June 28, 2000 – Sydney, Australia

**June 28, 2000 – Sydney, Australia**

John knew that the party didn't start until nine (because apparently, nine was the new eight when you entered the realm of teen), but he'd told his parents that he'd be over at the McKenna's at around a quarter to eight.

Since he'd befriended Gabriel and later Eden, he'd spent a lot of time at their house. Mainly because he now, at thirteen years of age, knew that the McKenna's always left their door open for him whenever voices were raised in his own home. Actually, even when it was dead silent. It didn't matter, he was always welcome.

He knew all about his father's infidelity, all about Marcia and that new one called Carol. He knew what it meant when that cupboard over the kitchen sink slammed closed and someone rummaged after a clean glass. He knew that if he didn't keep his mouth shut – and he rarely did these days – he would be backhanded and thrown down the stairs to the basement, where he would sit for hours just staring at a wall, seething with an unnamed kind of anger.

Sometimes, when they heard it, Gabby or Eddie or both would come sneak in through their broken fence and sit by one of the small, grimy windows to keep him company. They'd pass him comics and tell him about the new cars and trucks that had arrived to their father's job.

But this evening, he'd gotten out before his dad had gotten home from work. Or Marcia's.

Sitting on Eden's bed, feeling her present in his pocket, pressing against his leg, he watched as she stood in front of her cluttered mirror while she dusted some glitter onto her eyelids. John thought she looked like she'd been punched in the face by a sparkly Christmas ornament. But he didn't tell her that. Because then she'd probably punch him in the face.

Eden's room wasn't big - it used to be bigger when they were smaller. Back then, when they'd been five and Gabriel had brought John up for the first time, the twins had shared a room. But when they'd grown older, their parents had turned their one room into two.

Their old room used to be yellow – because it was 'unisex'. When they were little, the three of them had sniggered at the word, just because it contained 'sex'. At least until Mrs McKenna had explained exactly what sex was. Then they made faces and said that they were never ever going to have sex because it was icky to put one's pee-pee into someone else's pee-pee.

Eden's new room was not yellow anymore and John was pretty sure that she hadn't had sex in it yet. Her room was painted in a dark purple, her walls covered in posters, photos and newspaper clippings. Mostly of rugby players that John and Gabriel would only earn a second glance if they happened to score a particularly nice point. Eden, however, said that they were fit and that they worked as compensation for her lack of boyfriends. John kept a stubborn silence when she said that. Eden didn't need boyfriends. She had him – he was her friend _and _a boy.

"So who's coming anyway?" John asked as his eyes followed her slender body dive into closet.

"Mandy, Tasha, Zoë, Harriet…you know, the girls from school," her muffled voice said from deep inside the dark caverns of her wardrobe.

"What? You invited them?"

"Heck no," Eden said dismissively, pushing dark auburn hair out of her face when she emerged with something purple in her hand.

Purple was apparently the new It Colour. With Eden, this changed every other week. Which had made it considerably harder for John to buy her present. But he didn't mind. Any reason to get out of the house was good enough. He'd already given Gabriel his gift a few days earlier. A pair of fluffy dice to hang in the rear-view mirror of the fast car Gabriel was saving up for.

"They're for Gabby and his friends," Eden clarified, pulling the near transparent purple shirt over her black tank top.

"Do they know that? I mean, the girls?" John asked.

"What? That they're coming over as part of the buffet?" Eden laughed dryly. "Like I care."

For some reason, Eden Evangeline McKenna had always had trouble being friends with girls. John had noticed that most girls were either intimidated by her or only maintained contact with her in hopes of getting to breathe the same air as Gabriel. Gabriel, the good-looking sick boy. John had heard some women down the street talk about Gabriel. They'd said that it was a shame that someone so young, so handsome and _good_ would fall victim for illness. What kind of illness it was, they didn't know. Nobody seemed to know – not even Gabriel and Eden's parents. When they were ten, Mrs McKenna had said that he'd be good again in no-time. Granted, he felt a little better just days after. But then he got sick again. And had continued to feel sick more often since then.

But despite that, Gabriel was still the one with the most friends. At least out of the three of them. People wanted to be with him because he was fun and friendly and looked good, even for his young age. But also, John guessed, because Gabriel was sick and people naturally felt sorry for him.

Eden had once said that she thought it was stupid that people felt sorry for her brother. He didn't want their pity. John thought that maybe her saying that had turned a few people against her. They'd called her rude, pessimistic and even jealous. So they – mostly the girls with their unceasing yapping – decided to only talk to her if it would gain them any points with Gabriel. It was an unfair predicament.

And the fact that her best friend was St. John Allerdyce; that weird kid in the shitty house, didn't do much to save the situation. But as the years had gone by and Eden had lived through countless poorly thought-through schemes from her female peers, she'd grown wiser and tougher.

She didn't take any shit from anyone and was comfortable in having Gabriel and John as her only real friends. Together, they had dealt with everything from bullies, Gabriel being sick, John's parents, and churning out fabricated truths to explain how a pissed-off wombat had ended up in the McKenna's kitchen, scratching down the flowered wallpaper on one entire wall .

"Hey Eddie, you want your gift now or later?" John asked while he fiddled with the channels on her radio, only getting static and sappy ballads.

"What? John, you didn't have to get me anything," Eden said, looking at him from lying on her back on her bed with her head hanging off the edge. Her dark auburn hair had grown so long now that it spilled out onto the floor like barbeque sauce. Or something equally shiny and liquid-like.

"Bullshit," John retorted calmly, jamming his hand into his pocket to retrieve the box that had been poking his thigh for the past hour. "Here," he said, throwing it to her before leaning back in her desk chair, grabbing a pen to occupy his fingers with.

"Aw, mate…" Eden said under her breath as she pulled out the silver bracelet. "John, this is real nice. Thanks."

"Welcome. Happy birthday and stuff."

Eden looked up at him, amused.

"What do you say about going downstairs to crash a party?"


	4. October 3, 2001 – Sydney, Australia

A/N: This is the last chapter featuring solid backstory. Next up is "present time" with John being an arse.

* * *

**October 3, 2001 – Sydney Australia**

"Hi, Mrs McKenna. It's John."

"_Oh, hello John!"_

"Um. Is Eddie home?"

"_Yes, one moment. – Eden! It's for you!" _

John waited to hear the click of Eden picking up the phone in her room.

"_Hello?" _

"Hi, Eden, it's me."

There was a moment of silence where John could almost hear her gritting her teeth at the other end. Looking out of his bedroom window, he could see the warm light coming from behind the drawn curtains of her room on the second floor, just a stone-throw away from his.

"_What do you want?" _she asked sharply.

"Look, I have something important to tell you."

_"Oh, so now it's okay to tell me things? You didn't think of that after you shoved your tongue down Holly's throat!"_

"Hey! I said I was sorry!" John retorted, his temper immediately flaring up, mainly because she was evidently stubbornly holding onto her already two-week long grudge.

"_I fucking hate Holly and you know it!" _Eden nearly shrieked, making him jerk the receiver from his head to keep his hearing intact.

"Will you calm down!" he shouted back.

Looking over to her house, he saw her silhouette stalk over to her window to fiercely pull away the curtains to glare at him through the pane of glass.

_"I thought I could trust you!"_

He could see her breath fogging up a patch on her window. She was no calmer than the last time they'd talked. Or attempted to talk.

_"I thought that was part of the bloody package deal when you had a best friend."_

"Eddie, I'm still your best friend---"

_"No! Best friends don't kiss their enemies! They just don't!"_

"So my apology means nothing to you?"

_"Not really, no."_

"You're being unreasonable."

_"Unreasonable?_ Fuck you, _John Allerdyce. There, how's that for being unreasonable?"_

That night, John didn't get to say what he wanted to tell her. She hung up on him and gave him the finger before yanking her curtains closed and leaving him there in his darkened room, with the dial tone ringing through his head.

He hadn't gone to that party at Finn's with the intention to hook up with Holly, Eden's (and by affiliation, also his) sworn enemy. It just happened. How the hell was he supposed to know that they'd both end up taking the wrong turn to the bathroom? How was he to know that the only thing that his fourteen-year old mind could think of to fill the vacuumed silence with, was to kiss her back? Because despite whatever Eden had yelled at him, he hadn't been the one to initiate the kiss. It had been Holly. But then the part where he didn't push her away, didn't call her a slut and didn't run screaming in the opposite direction made him just as guilty.

And of course, with his luck, Finn just had to yank the bedroom door open. John didn't even know how it had closed, but was willing to bet money that it'd been Holly's work. Then, obviously, as they were all a bunch of immature and pimple-faced fourteen-year-olds, the word of John and Holly making out in Finn's parents' bedroom! spread like a goddamned bushfire.

Inevitably, the combination of his guilt-ridden silence and the quick flapping of lip-glossed mouths, got the juicy story to Eden McKenna's ears earlier than he'd wanted. And so, two weeks of arguing and defiant silences followed.

Arguments and silences that did little to help him with another problem that had added to his already teetering pile of troubles.

Something had happened to him. Far beyond stupid things like zits, having the right shoes and chest hair (which he, for the record, didn't have and didn't want).

John could control fire. Or rather, he could do things to fire that definitely weren't normal. Saying that he could fully control it would be a bit of a stretch. The incident with his father's glowing cigarette and favourite ashtray exploding on the coffee table being perfect proof of how far his "control" went.

Nevertheless, he had needed Eden. Gabriel had spent a majority of the past few months in hospital due to his bad condition. And with no car, and no money to take the bus to visit him, John had gradually lost touch with his other best friend.

But with his stupid mistake with the even stupider and manipulative Holly Connelly left him without Eden as well.

She'd refused to give him an opportunity to properly apologise for exchanging spit with Holly, tell her about his power and more urgently let her know that he was leaving the following day.

Apparently, according to some bloke called Charles Xavier, John was a mutant. And apparently, there was a place for people like him to be safe from people who, for some reason, hated mutants. And although John knew that his parents didn't know how the ashtray had exploded or why they one day found burn marks on the hallway carpet, he knew that they'd be livid if they knew. They weren't exactly the accepting kind of people.

Early the morning after Eden had hung up on him, when his mother was still in bed and his father was still drooling down the living room couch, John snuck out of the creaking front door of their house. With a backpack stuffed with his necessary belongings, he shuffled down the strip of concrete that lead from their front porch to the sidewalk. Looking down the street, he remembered the first time he sat there, hearing Gabriel's squeaky five-year-old voice say hello to him.

John glanced over his shoulder to the house next to his. The McKenna's were all fast asleep, just like Mr and Mrs Allerdyce. But somehow, their house seemed more peaceful. John bit the inside of his cheek.

He'd tried to write her a letter, trying to say everything that he couldn't get through to her over the phone or face to face. He'd started it out with the usual 'Dear Eden' but soon found it to sound too cheesy, too made-up, too not like him. John Allerdyce wasn't the letter-writing kind of guy.

Hitching his backpack up on his shoulder, he felt his bracelet slide down a bit on his forearm. A few days after Gabriel and Eden's thirteenth birthday, when he'd given her the silver bracelet, she had gone out to get him one as well. She'd said that it was a little corny, but that it made sense at the time. Said that they needed something that was just between the two of them, without Gabriel. He wouldn't have needed an explanation, but he was glad for it none the less.

Hearing the soft purr of an approaching car coming from down the street, John tore his eyes from the neat house that he'd probably spent more time in than his own. The car was a small, black sporty one. The kind that Holly Connelly's dad kept in his garage just to look at or occasionally take on a spin when the weather was just right.

Pulling up, a black-tinted window was rolled down and a shock of white hair popped out before he saw a dark-skinned face smile up at him.

"Are you St. John?"

John nodded silently, feeling incredibly out of place. But the woman just kept on smiling. A little like Mrs McKenna, he thought.

"I'm Ororo Munroe. The jet is waiting just a few minutes out of town."


	5. October 3, 2006 – Westchester, NY, USA

**A/N: **Thanks to **M.J.L.S** and **halleyjo **for being the first to review. I am sporting the stupidest grin on the planet right now, thanks to you guys. This is my first published fic in years, so I'm really (really, really) glad that you like it.

Warning for some assholage in this chapter.

* * *

**October 3, 2006 – Westchester, NY, USA**

It didn't feel right. Being back and not having been put into solitary confinement or even interrogated under a naked light bulb with his hands tied behind his back – it just didn't feel right. Nothing, from Alcatraz up until just now, had felt right. There was a constant churning in the pit of his stomach that told him to be on his guard. They, the X-Men, weren't supposed to allow him inside the mansion again. They weren't supposed to give him his own room. But they did. And hell, he hadn't had it this good even when he stayed there the first time around.

The first time, he'd shared a room with Bobby, Piotr and two other guys. Now, he had a smaller room all to himself. When Ororo Munroe – Storm – had let the door shut behind her, he had waited a few beats before checking if it was locked. To his surprise, it clicked open under his hand, swinging easily, silently, on well-oiled hinges.

Storm had only asked him if he was alright. He'd mulled over her question for a while, not sure of what exactly it was that she was implying. Was he physically alright? Yeah, sure. Was he alright in the head? …had he ever been? He decided to just shrug and nod – a gesture he'd learned to perfect during the past couple of years.

Shrugging and nodding.

He'd shrugged and nodded – a Heineken nod, if you will – when he'd seen Bobby again. He didn't know what else to do. He could have glared, but after the hubbub at Alcatraz, he just felt indifferent. Bobby had nearly turned his ass into solid block of ice back there, and while John was pissed about it, he had to give his old friend some credit.

Magneto had lost and it had been the biggest shocker in his life, apart from when he blew up his father's ashtray when he was fourteen. The Brotherhood had far exceeded the X-Men in numbers and had the odds on their side with both Magneto and Phoenix. But somehow, they'd ended up defeated, and widened the cleft between humans and mutants in the process. The predicted victory had turned to double defeat. The anticipated taste of sweet triumph had ended up tasting about as nice as licking a cat's ass.

Maybe, he thought, he should have somehow known that the good guys always made it. But John wasn't good. He hadn't been good in years. But now he was being given a second chance – for whatever unknown reasons – and quite frankly, he wasn't doing much of it.

Since he'd been brought back to the mansion, that kept running despite the deaths of two teachers and the Professor himself, he'd kept to himself. His new room had become the prison cell that they'd failed to provide with, his old lighter being his bitch in the night.

If John had been the brooding rebel before all hell had broken loose, he was probably an insufferable downright bastard now. Some of the people that he used to consider his friends, had made brave attempts of talking to him. Kitty, out of all, seemed to be the most determined to coax him out of the ominous black cloud of snide remarks and dark glares that he surrounded himself with. His old self, the one that would pick a fight just because he was so goddamned bored, would have appreciated the gesture, if only a little.

Now, he couldn't stand them. Not a single one of them. Maybe it was because he knew that they were doing it out of pity. Poor John, he went to the dark side, got his butt kicked and now has to live with the fucking Brady Bunch. Or maybe, because he was stuck in a knee-high swamp of self-loathing.

He knew he wasn't good. In a way, he'd always known. But that his bad side would go to such lengths as to allow him to be corrupted by an old man wearing a ridiculous helmet, he had no idea. He had no idea that he was capable of doing the things that he had done. And when he allowed himself enough time to think about it, he always ended up feeling disgusted with himself.

A knock at the door distracted him from his ongoing reflections.

"John?"

Kitty Pryde.

John kept his eyes fixed to the same spot in the ceiling that he'd been staring at for the past hour.

"John? Are you in there?"

Maybe, he thought, if he just visualized her being trampled by a herd of rabid rhinos then it'd make her go away.

He could hear the rustling of her clothes as she phased into the room, once again taking no consideration to his privacy. He hated how she just took her liberties around him. As if acting like nothing had happened was going to set things right again. How was she, little Kitty Pryde, to know how to do that? She was just a kid.

"John…"

It was the third time she'd said his name in less than a minute and he was already starting to get annoyed.

"Dinner's ready," she said, trying to keep her tone light, because – he assumed – she thought it would make him feel better.

"I'm not hungry," he lied, not looking at her.

The flicking and clicking of his lighter, a new one since he'd lost the old one with the shark on it, filled the silence that settled between them.

"You haven't eaten since breakfast," Kitty pointed out, letting him know that she was the one in charge of making sure that poor John got fed.

He snapped his lighter shut and shifted to lie on his side, his back turned to her.

"Go away, Kitty," he mumbled into his pillow.

But instead of listening to her shuffle away towards the door, he felt his bed dip as she sat herself down; her back brushing against his.

"How long are you going to keep this up?"

He didn't answer.

"John…Pyro," Kitty tried using his other name to get a reaction from him.

Nothing. He just didn't feel like talking. Especially not to Kitty.

"Look, Magneto's gone, you don't – as far as I know – have a family to go to. This, us, we're all that's left. Why do you keep fighting against us even when it's all over?"

Sweet, innocent little Kitty.

The others, the so-called adults, said that the war had probably been the hardest on Kitty. They'd said that maybe she'd been too young to be a part of the X-Men. That maybe she shouldn't have come with them to Alcatraz. At just barely sixteen, she'd had adulthood thrust upon her and been forced to see the harsh reality through untrained eyes. In a way, John felt sorry for her. But his pity didn't last very long.

"It'll never be over, Kitty," John said darkly, the flame of his lighter casting a warm golden glow against the cream painted wall. "As long as we're still mutants and they're still humans, it won't be over."

"Of course it won't if you keep thinking about it like that," Kitty retorted indignantly. "You can't divide things into black and white. There is a grey area where we can all live together. Just look at Bobby and Rogue—"

"Yeah, there's a prime example of a grey area," John spat with a dry laugh, snapping his lighter shut before turning over and propping himself up on his elbows to give the petite brunette a long look. "Bobby and Rogue live in a dream world, Kitty."

"Well at least they're happy," she was quick to shoot back, glaring at him through the darkness of his room.

"How can you be so sure?" he asked leisurely, cocking her a challenging brow.

He could see her jaw tense as her glare darkened. He'd hit a spot and he knew it. He knew that Bobby and Rogue were far from as happy as they thought they'd be. John guessed that Bobby was missing the part of Rogue that made her different – that set her apart from all of the other pretty girls that roamed the halls of the mansion. Now she was just as touchable, just as approachable to anyone – everyone – as the rest of them. John had meant it that day outside the clinic, when he'd called her pathetic.

Kitty didn't stay long. Actually, she left soon after his last question, making a point out of not phasing through the door so that she could slam it instead. John rarely saw Kitty loose her bright façade around him, perhaps because she tried so damn hard in hopes of it rubbing off on him. But this time he'd managed to piss even her off. He wondered if he was to count that as a small victory on his part or as yet another crack in his already broken mirror.


	6. Getting By

**A/N: **omgwtfbbq! No more pseudo-X-Files titles! They kind of lost their point after we reached present time. So...yeah. Once again, thanks for the reviews, you guys (warm welcome to new readers)! And just a little heads up: this is the last completed chapter I have in store, so it might take a while before I smack up the next. It really just depends on my muse. Or the amount of tea that I chug.

**And some shameless plugging:** Just posted a Pyro one-shot called 'Used'. Go. Look. Now. Thankyou.

- A. De Nacho.

* * *

**Getting by**

"John."

"Bobby."

The two young men seized each other up as the former sat down across from the latter. That one seat – to Bobby and John's joint dismay - being the only one left in the entire dining room. Rogue (or _Marie_, as she preferred it these days) and Kitty were also there, at the same table, however slightly turned away from John. He couldn't exactly say that he was even remotely surprised by the subtle, yet clearly noticeable gesture.

Kitty hadn't come to his room since she last stormed out of there, a couple of days earlier. Not that he was directly complaining. Although, with the more blaring lack of someone to communicate with (no matter how acid their words were), he was feeling considerably grumpier than usual.

John heard Bobby say something to Rogue while he aimlessly poked around in his cold lasagne. Something about Logan. Either when he was coming back, if he was coming back, or perhaps where he'd been. For Logan's sake, John hoped that he'd gone someplace where he'd had a lot of fun and lots of meaningless sex. And a few crates of good beer. Because there sure as hell wasn't anything even remotely like that around the mansion.

The women – nay, the _girls_ – were all either stuck being giggling high schoolers or traumatized by the war. He wasn't saying that he was a grown man with chest hair and a legitimate urge to pop open a bottle of beer after having shagged a handful of bodacious women. He still had no chest hair (and was perfectly fine with that) and most nights his right hand worked well enough.

But the mansion was far from entertaining. Despite being able to roam the halls however he damn well pleased, he wasn't allowed in the Danger Room – because he wasn't an X-Man. Neither was he allowed to borrow any of the late Scott Summers' wheels, because people were afraid he'd drive himself off a bridge. So, basically, all he had left to do was skulk around, brood a little (okay maybe a lot) and steadily work his way towards lung cancer from smoking so many cigarettes a day.

After enduring an awkwardly silent dinner with "the gang", John peeled off to plant his rear on the edge of the fountain out in the back. Fall had already blanketed New York State with chilly winds and bitingly cold nights. Leaves had fallen from now naked branches, creating a squashy orange and brown carpet over the nicely mowed lawns. It was far from the Australia he'd left and forced himself to forget, but it was the closest thing to home he knew of. The fountain was still squirting water into the circular pool that he sat by; the sound of water making him feel the slight urge to take a leak.

Ignoring nature calling, he fished out his mashed packet of cigarettes from his back jean pocket and stuck one bent stick between his lips. Lighting the end up with his Zippo, he took a long drag and sighed with content as the nicotine seeped into his system.

Glancing up at the clear night sky, he heard her light footsteps coming from the mansion long before she slumped down next to him.

"Hi," she said.

John exhaled a thick pillar of white smoke.

"I thought you were pissed at me," he said, not meaning it as a question, more like a statement of fact.

"I am," she confirmed it with an obstinate tone to her voice.

John gave her a sidelong glance.

"Good."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her snap her head in his direction, giving him a befuddled stare.

"What? How can that be good?" she chided, clearly annoyed.

"I'd rather have you pissed at me than trying to get me to sing along to the theme song of Barney the dinosaur," he answered simply, sucking on his cigarette before taking it from his lips to study the glowing tobacco at the other end.

Kitty Pryde was silent for a good while before he felt her shake her head, her shoulder-length brown hair whispering against the wind jacket she wore.

"You're so messed up, John," she said, almost like a mother would to her teenaged and out-of-control son.

He chuckled at her and took a last long drag of his cigarette before tossing it behind him to hear it fizz out in the water. He knew Kitty was giving him a disapproving glare for his careless littering.

Another moment of silence passed before she drew a small breath.

"Logan called."

He wasn't sure if she was expecting some kind of emotional outburst from his side when she said it, but he could feel her brown eyes looking at him expectantly, waiting for some kind of reaction.

"Okay," he said, flatly. He wasn't about to go out of his way to win an Oscar from Katherine freaking Pryde.

"They said he's up in Canada," Kitty continued, choosing to ignore his lack of enthusiasm. "Rogue said that he'd found something – maybe a mutant, she wasn't sure. Then Jubes said that he'd called to ask for backup. Something about needing an ice-cream truck for transportation."

John actually quirked her a questioning brow at that.

"What? They finally found Bobby's long lost twins Ben and Jerry?" He gave a short dry laugh, flicking his lighter again, now that he'd gotten rid of the cigarette.

Okay, so the joke was the lamest thing he'd ever churned out in his life, but who was he to impress? Kitty? Hah.

"You're such a jerk, you know that?" Kitty said, narrowing her eyes at him.

John chuckled again.

"Yep. Very much aware of that, thank you."

They shared another silence, more comfortable or at least indifferent than anything else.

"Right. Gotta pee. Later," John announced and got up from the stone edge of the fountain, trudging back to the mansion, leaving Kitty to her own.


	7. Unexpectedly

**A/N: **By far the hardest chapter to write to date. Gah. Any kind of feedback to this one would be ace. Thanks to Audioslave, Queens of the Stone Age, Tiger Lou, Jeff Buckley and José Gonzales for offering moody music. Even greater thanks to everyone who has reviewed – I really appreciate it! Cookies and puppies to all. Finally, **M.J.L.S**: Yes, chapter five is after X3. I'm sorry I wasn't very clear about that.

* * *

**Unexpectedly**

He could feel the fire; a presence that pushed him to the edge, leaving him to balance on the thin line between keeping it together and losing it all. The heat was a comforting embrace and a suffocating hand around his windpipes all at once. Twisting around his torso, the flames tightened and cut his ragged breaths short. The air was burning his throat, glowing ashes singeing his insides as he tried to scream for help. But his mind was a dark pit of loneliness when he'd pushed everyone away. Not even Kitty was there to offer her damned pity.

His body covered in a glistening layer of sweat, he struggled against invisible bonds that held him down, held him close to the fire. His hands splayed out in front of him, his powers useless against the roaring flames that taunted him. Twisting and writhing in his sweat-soaked bed, John screamed out as he finally jolted out of his nightmare, coming face to face with Kitty's concerned face. Jerking away from her and scrambling backwards, he pressed himself against the cool wall with his damp sheets tangled around his legs.

"Are you alright?" she asked carefully, her eyebrows knotting worriedly as she looked at him from where she crouched just next to his bed.

"What? No – I mean, yes! Jesus, Kitty! What the hell are you doing here!?" he asked between catching his breath, his voice nearly hitting a girly shriek.

"I'm sorry!" she half-shouted in defence, standing up and backing away to give him some room as he swung his legs off the bed.

"Yeah, I bet you're _real_ sorry, you pervert," John grumbled, giving her wandering eyes a pointed glare as he yanked the sheets off himself to stand up.

Swiftly averting her eyes from where they had been scanning downwards on his body – from the sweat-soaked muscle tank to the silly plaid shorts – Kitty stepped even further aside, clearing her throat awkwardly.

"Are you here to just look at me or do you have other, less pathetic intentions?" he demanded, running a hand through his damp hair as he rummaged through the jeans he'd thrown on the floor.

"Uh, yeah. Storm sent me. We need you," Kitty said, her words fractioned and uneasy.

John looked up at her with his near-empty packet of cigarettes in his grasp, only then noticing the leather uniform she was wearing. He frowned.

"She said we needed anyone we could spare," she told him. "It's for Logan," she then added when he kept on frowning at her.

"What? Like that's going to convince me to come running to the rescue?" John retorted with a short laugh.

He heard her huff out loud, the leather of her suit creaking as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"You're so goddamned full of yourself, John. If it hadn't been for Dr McCoy and Storm, you'd be in jail or even dead right now. They're giving you a second chance and you're too busy being a dickhead to make some use of it," she paused, giving him a hard look, "Get over yourself and get ready. The jet's waiting outside."

"Hey! Don't I get a uniform?" he called after her as she marched towards the door, obviously content with her words of reprimand.

"No. You've got to earn it first, _Pyro_," Kitty answered, not looking back to see the half-amused look on his face.

* * *

"What's _he_ doing here?" Bobby Drake asked as he watched John calmly strap himself into his seat. 

The pyrokinetic looked up at his former friend with a smug sneer.

"They couldn't resist my boyish charm."

"Like anyone would w—"

"Boys…" Storm's warning voice rose from up front by the control board.

"Bobby just leave him alone," Kitty said from sitting in front of the Iceman. She then turned to give John a pointed look across the aisle between them.

He couldn't remember how things had been between himself and Kitty before the Brotherhood. She'd only been another name in a classroom. Another back to watch when the lessons grew too boring. And, of course, that girl that had stirred things up with Bobby and Rogue. Oh yeah, he'd heard about that alright. Courtesy of the resident gossip mill, Miss Jubilation Lee.

Looking at her now, he could barely see what all the hubbub had been about. She was…cute, in her own right. But far from what he thought would be in Bobby's taste. As far as John knew, Bobby preferred women over girls who could pass as his baby sister.

But, having her hot on his tail to seemingly annoy some sunshine into him, had shown him a Kitty that he could almost, perhaps, just _maybe_ learn to deal with. Granted, she was the one to cause him the most headaches with her incessant babbling about morals and optimism and _keeping up the spirit_. But even so, she did add an element of entertainment. If nothing else, he at least had her to aim his bitterness and sarcasm at.

"Will you just give it a rest for one damned minute?" Kitty hissed at him, even though every single one sitting in the plane could hear her.

John gave her a defiant grimace.

"_He_ started it!" he snapped back.

"Jesus Christ, how old are you?!"

"Okay everyone just be quiet before I make myself guilty harming anyone!" Dr Hank McCoy suddenly roared from his place next to Storm, just as the jet gave an ominous shake. He obviously shared another hairy man's fear of flying.

John reluctantly stowed away his retort but just barely managed to hide his amused smirk when he saw Kitty shrink into her seat. Sure, Hank was big, bulky, blue and probably had the biggest brain in the northern hemisphere, but he wasn't intimidating enough to have him cower in fear. Besides, McCoy wouldn't dare do anything in Storm's presence.

Ororo Munroe had been one of the very few people in John's life that had managed to earn his respect. Even though she hadn't exactly bonded with him over tea and scones, her actions still spoke volumes about her integrity. She was a woman with solid values and views, who carried herself with pride. He admired that. That she was so sure of who she was and what she wanted. Because he sure as hell had no idea who he was, little less what he wanted.

Sometimes, when he lay awake with only his thoughts and his lighter keeping him company, he could list a million different things that he wanted. They ranged from fast cars and women to more schmaltzy things like safety and happiness. Eventually, after too many hours thinking of how sweet it would be to have a house on the countryside and an old dog at his feet, he usually got interrupted by Kitty or the realization that he was chasing impossibilities. He had already blown his chances. He was living on a free-card he'd found in the crack in the couch, nestled between stale Doritos and his trampled pride. Now his goals had been reduced to merely making it through the day without getting thrown out or killed.

Looking around the jet that had been airborne for at least half an hour, John remembered how things had looked the last time he'd sat there, incidentally, in the very same seat. The most noticeable difference was surprisingly enough not the fact that three people who had been with them then, now were hanging out with worms and maggots six feet under. But that a friendship that had meant not everything but surely a lot to him, was now completely non-existent. Bobby pretty much hated his guts for firing at a building that Rogue could have been in. And Rogue herself was, as Erik would have put it, "No longer one of them", and she wasn't. On so many levels.

John was honestly tired of going over how incredibly stupid he thought her drastic move towards touchy feely had been. To erase the one thing that really defined her - Idiot!

He was happy she wasn't in the jet with them or else he'd given her her fair share of glares. No matter how many times he'd heard her tell Kitty that he'd been glaring so much that she'd started to become immune. He considered it his civic duty. Or at least his duty as a regulation jerk.

"We're about ten minutes to landing, so Hank will fill you in on the details Logan gave us," Storm said over her shoulder as she lowered the jet's altitude, making them all hold their breaths while their stomachs lurched out of place.

"Well," Hank started, taking a deep breath, "It seems like we've got _a couple_ of mutants on our hands."

He'd said the word 'couple' in the way a parent would approach a strictly adult word to his children. Like 'intercourse' and 'alcoholic'. John toyed with the idea that a ho-down scenario was waiting for them once they landed. Some pissed-off chick trying to blow her cheating boyfriend's butt to smithereens. For a brief moment, an unwanted memory resurfaced in his mind, overshadowing his inner joke and making him tighten his grip around his lighter.

Shaking his head, he rid himself of the distant shouts, the empty bottles and the foul smell of vomit coming from the crack underneath the bathroom door. He wasn't going to fall for that. He wasn't going to make it even worse by remembering a life he'd forced himself to forget.

* * *

It seemed like Logan had done a pretty bad job at collecting information. Because as they descended from the hatch, they weren't any wiser beyond the fact that they'd be dealing with not just one, but _a couple_ of mutants. Something had been said about solar activity, something about trouble communicating and maybe something about oven mitts. John hadn't really been paying much attention. 

He did, however, duly note how the landscape that met him once he set foot outside the jet, seemed to have been pulled straight out of a Bobby Drake wet dream.

Snow. Snow and ice as far as the eye could see. Pine-trees laden with heavy whiteness, bowed before them as they exited the aircraft in the small clearing that Storm had landed them in. John muttered curses under his breath as the ankle-high carpet of snow already began to seep through his sneakers. Catching Bobby smirking at his obvious discomfort, he balled his freezing hands into tight fists, forcing himself to resist the strong urge to hurl fireballs at the Iceman's pompous ass.

"Here," a voice said before a pair of gloves and a knitted cap were pushed to his chest.

Surprised, he took them and looked after Kitty as she continued to walk ahead of him, without even as much as glancing back at him.

He didn't even try to understand the gesture.

Instead, he tailed after the team that he wasn't a part of, wondering what exactly it was that they were expecting of him. He wasn't stupid, he knew that they were offering him a chance to redeem himself. But if that meant just being there without being an insufferable prat or if it actually required some initiative to don the superhero stance – he had no idea. He needed directions. He needed orders and demands. He was too tired to figure out what they wanted from him on his own.

He needed a smoke.

His fingers itching to slip one of his last few cigarettes between his lips, he unfortunately had to refrain from his bad habit as someone up ahead announced that they were closing in on their target. And although a part of him wanted to say 'Screw it, I'm going to work on my lung cancer anyway', something caught his attention, making him mute the impatient rebel inside.

Looking down, he noticed how crunchy snow had turned to wet grass and muddy earth. Throwing a look over his shoulder, he could clearly see how the snow had retreated to bare more ground. Frowning, he rolled his shoulders, feeling how it really wasn't that cold anymore.

"John! Come on!"

Raising his confused gaze, he saw Kitty waiting for him further ahead, her brown eyes hard and impatient.

Walking to catch up with the rest, he could hear Logan's rumbling voice addressing Hank and Storm. He sounded like he always did. Gruff Mr Logan "I-shit-cinderblocks-that's-how-manly-I-am".

_"Logan, did they talk to you?"_

_"Yeah. Told me to stay away."_

_"Logan…"_

_"Yeah Storm, I know. Bobby, come here."_

By the time John had fought his way through the poking branches of the trees that Kitty had easily phased through, he looked like he'd been mauled and whipped by possessed Christmas enthusiasts.

Logan, who honestly wasn't looking any peachier, was standing to the side with a hand on Bobby's shoulder, evidently instructing him on something. Kitty was hovering awkwardly next to Storm who in turn kept her dark eyes fixed to something beyond another gathering of trees. Squinting through the darkness, John could barely make out a silver glow underneath the skirts of dark green needles, between the stubbly legs of the pines.

"It's them," Hank McCoy's stately voice suddenly said, startling John.

Straightening, the pyrokinetic looked over to the blue man who had come up to stand beside him.

"They're causing the heat, too. They didn't let Logan get too close. Nearly boiled him alive," the doctor told him, giving a slightly incredulous chuckle.

John felt like you feel when you're being mistaken for someone else. When someone talks to you as if they know you. But they really don't. And you're just awkwardly waiting to raise a finger in the air and say that Sorry, you're not Bob from marketing, you're just Bill the postman.

John couldn't help himself.

"Why are you telling me this?" he asked, frowning at the man, also known as Beast, in confusion.

He half expected him to bare his teeth and claw out his intestines for being smart with him. But the other man just donned a rather grave expression before turning to fully face John.

"Because you're not just here to warm the seats, John."

And with that, John received a clap on the shoulder and a heads up that they were going to move in closer in just a minute.

* * *

"I told you to stay away!" 

Her voice rang loud and clear despite the burning inferno that was just breaths from consuming her completely. An inferno caused by a human shape that lay motionless on the mucky ground. Flames were bursting through the figure's skin, growing to reach towards the cloudy and snow-heavy night sky. The natural cold was being pushed away with a burning force that was so strong that they all hesitated to push any further forward.

A force that had John, _Pyro_, paralysed.

Her voice, the light, the fire, the contrasts of cold meeting hot and anger meeting persistent goodness – it was messing with his head.

The painfully obvious accent that tinted her words went straight to the back of his mind, kicking up the dust around the memories he'd sworn to deny. Squinting against the blinding light that she was emitting, his mind could only match the voice to the only face and name that he wished he'd never known. The only face he could never really forget. Because somehow, he didn't really want to forget her. No matter how angry they'd both been with each other. No matter the things she'd called him. No matter the many years that had gone since he last saw her. Her face was still there. Forever fourteen and hating him for being the fuck up that he was.

"John! Do something!" Kitty was suddenly shouting at him, her small hands clutching onto his arm, pulling at it with desperation in her eyes.

John blinked out of his haze to see that the fire had grown bigger the closer they had gotten. It reached as high as the jagged treetops and was causing bursts of heat to propel against the team of mutants that were surrounding the couple. The heat was so intense that beads of sweat trickled down the sides of his face. Wedging in between his upturned collar, irritating his already overheated skin. The girl, the blinding ball of light, who had been screaming for them to back off, was speeding around the fire to ward them from coming any closer. His eyes hurt from trying to keep up and look away at the same time.

"_Do something!_" Kitty yelled again, this time giving him a hard punch in the arm.

Resisting the need to flinch and swear at her, he wordlessly pushed her away and yanked the gloves off his hands.

Extending his hands towards the fire, he felt his mutation grasp the licking flames with natural ease, slowly quenching it by the force of his mind.

"_NO!_"

"John!"

The loud scream blended with Kitty's yell of warning and for the fraction of a second, he felt how time slowed down around him. Kitty was caught in mid-air as she leapt towards him, her arms extended to push him out of the way. In his peripheral vision he saw Storm latch onto Logan's bulky arm, her eyes wide in alarm. Even the blue doctor's mouth was dropped open, his roar lodged in his throat.

A heartbeat later, John was on his back with a weight pinning him to the wet ground. The back of his head was throbbing from having slammed to the still frozen earth that laid underneath the layer of muddied grass. Blood was rushing past his ears in deafening bursts that drowned out the chaos that suddenly surrounded him.

_"Don't open your eyes! Don't open your eyes, John!"_

He heard Kitty in the distance and only then realized that he'd screwed his eyes shut. From behind his eyelids, all he saw was red. A dizzying red, pulsating light forcing its way past the thin skin, numbing his mind.

"Leave him alone! Leave my brother alone!"

Her voice was close. John groaned as his brain registered that she was the one who had knocked him to the ground. That it was that girl, the light, who was pushing his wrists into the mud, who was straddled over his middle, who was screaming for them to stop.

_"John!"_

Kitty was shouting again and suddenly he felt the grip around his wrists loosen.

Then it went pitch black.

John thought that he'd died. He thought that he'd died and that the afterlife only had darkness, wet mud and the smell of smoke to offer people like him. No pearly gates, no guidance counselling with God, no evaluation, no two week's notice – it was straight to hell. During the two and a half seconds that he had to think about it, he realized that he was actually kind of disappointed. Considering his previous relationship with fire, he'd at least hoped to get to see the much talked about 'Fiery Pits Of Hell'. Apparently, he wasn't even worth that.

But as his senses caught up with him, he realized that he wasn't dead. Because he could still feel his body. He could still feel the ache in his head, the mud seeping through the back of his jeans. The girl that still sat on him.

"St John…?"

It wasn't Kitty.

It wasn't Kitty and the fact that it wasn't Kitty made his blood freeze in his veins.

Forcing himself to open his eyes, he blinked to regain focus in the darkness that now had replaced the bright light. He directed his gaze to the blurry shadows of a face that hovered just inches above his own.

A fraction of a second later, he desperately wished that he hadn't.

There was no mistaking the dark auburn hair, the dark green eyes that stared down at him with an unfathomable expression that had him wanting that death after all.

"Eden…"


	8. Same Old New

**A/N:** After I'd created Eden and Gabriel, I went over to to check on some powers to help me polish those that I had already given them. Freakily enough, I stumbled upon existing original characters Aurora and Northstar – also twins. I liked Aurora's powers so much that I decided to tweak Eden's to match hers. Gabriel, however, kept his own OC powers. Gabby and Eddie share no other story with the canon twins besides the above. 

And also: it seems like the harder I think a chapter is to write, the longer it gets. Je ne sais pas pourquoi. Personally, I think this is the messiest one so far.

* * *

**Same old new**

The flight back to the mansion had been an awkward deal – to put it nicely.

Everyone had seemed to sit on itching questions of how the girl had known his name, how _he _had known hers and why they were then promptly avoiding each other. John had sat in his seat, staring straight into the headrest of Logan's chair, long enough to eventually find the Wolverine's peculiar hair endlessly fascinating. Incoherent thoughts of a deflated mind had begun to form while he'd stared his eyeballs dry. Did Logan actually devote his mornings to coiffing it that way or did he just wake up to look like an electrocuted Dagwood? What shampoo did he use and did he let it air dry and why was Eden McKenna sitting _right fucking there?_

John had only dared tear his eyes from Logan's head to look over his shoulder once. Or maybe twice.

Eden had sat on Bobby's side of the plane, on the padded bench John had sat on when Magneto had asked his name; had called him a God among insects. John had felt the taste of bitter disdain form in the back of his throat when he'd thought about it. Magneto sure had been a class act.

"Excuse me? Can you…can you clear the ice? So I can see him?"

She'd asked Bobby. She'd _talked_ to _Bobby_, instead of _John_. Granted, John hadn't made any greater efforts to speak to her either, but it still felt like a blow to the head. Or his manly bits. Take your pick.

Bobby had given her jaded face an apprehensive smile, before getting up to touch his bare hand to the box of ice that encased her brother, Gabriel. The frost had cleared from the side that Eden sat by, giving John a clear angle to look straight inside the thing that gave him chilling associations to a coffin.

Gabriel McKenna looked a lot like when he was fourteen. Still the pretty boy. Still, obviously, the sick boy. His skin was paler than John remembered it, and the dark auburn hair he had shared with his sister was now closely cropped and pitch black. John could only resemble it to how the ground used to look after bushfires back in Australia. The grass turned black and bent, curling away from the scorching heat.

Quite evidently, something had gone awry with Gabriel's mutation. So much, that Hank had rushed him and his ice coffin with Bobby and Eden in tow, to a sub-level chamber where the temperature stayed at a steady minus five. If they didn't keep him cold, he'd burst into flames. Again.

This was all second-hand information to John, told to him by Kitty, who had took it upon herself to snoop around to satisfy her curiosity. After he'd pointed out that it was curiosity that killed the cat, she's laughed and said that she'd take her chances – all nine of them. She'd also said that he was in no position to object to her snooping, since he wasn't exactly objecting to her spilling it all to him. To which John had to admit himself obviously defeated.

"You still haven't answered my question," Kitty said from sitting at the other end of the couch, her feet resting on the seat between them.

John kept his eyes on the empty screen of the TV in front of him. He had resorted to his new habit of barely listening to people when they talked to him.

"What question?" he asked, not moving.

He felt her lean forward, hugging her arms around her bent legs, resting her chin on her knees.

"How you knew her - or them."

He didn't answer. He didn't know if he wanted Kitty to know that he'd had a life before the current post-war pickle he was in. He didn't know if he was willing to give Kitty that other John; the one that had been – if only a little – better than the washed up terrorist he probably was in her eyes. Had Kitty managed to get so far under his skin that it was inevitable to keep it from her? Could he trust her?

Had the past catching up with him made it impossible to keep running?

"Were they with you in the Brotherhood?" she pressed on, her warm breath reaching so far it touched the side of his face.

John almost spat out his 'No', the snap of his head in her direction carrying a glare so hard Kitty's brown eyes widened in surprise. She breathed a quiet 'O…kay' before a tense silence settled between them.

The downstairs lounge had, apart from John's room, become their most common battleground. The rest of the student body knew that whenever Kitty determinately headed towards the sitting area with sticky cocoa stains on the expensive furniture, they'd better be prepared to clear the scene. Because sooner or later, she'd manage to annoy him into holding a handful of flames inside the cage of his fingers, with threats of toasting her tail spilling from his lips. But Kitty normally never let him get to her. She knew that he'd never do more than possibly singe the tips of her hair (which was easily solved with a pair of scissors and good conditioner). Her efforts of breaking past his defensive walls were starting to pay off – and they were both aware of it. Although John was perhaps not seeing it with the same triumphant smirk that Kitty was.

"So when did you get to know each other then?"

John gave the smaller girl an incredulous look. She was relentless!

"A long time ago," he ground out.

"Are you friends?" she asked, tilting her head to the side to look at him curiously.

Another moment of silence passed.

"Were," he corrected finally, feeling the results of a sleepless night creeping in to settle in his body.

"Gee, I wonder why. With your 'boyish charm'." Kitty snorted with a generous pinch of tease to her tone.

Rubbing a hand over his tired face, John couldn't hold in the chuckle that rose in his throat. 'Good move, Kitten, using me against myself', he thought.

"Yeah, I'm like a fucking cuddly puppy," he commented sardonically, turning his blood-shot eyes to look at her.

She pressed her lips into a sadly sympathetic smile.

"You look like shit," she said as a matter-of-factly.

He huffed out a short laugh.

"Thanks, Kitty. Just what I needed."

She nodded her welcome and gave his leg a friendly nudge of her toes, before she set her feet to the Persian rug that had been sprinkled with Cheeto-dust and pretzel salt. He watched her when she pushed her brown hair behind her ears before looking over her small shoulder to lock her eyes to his.

"You should talk to them," she stated simply, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

And in a way, it was.

"They're locked up in an ice-box, Kitty," John pointed out, his voice marred with the roughness of fatigue.

Kitty Pryde gave him a patient look.

"I'm the girl who can walk through walls, _John_."

* * *

She'd left him to step through the polished black tiles and into a room so cold he regretted not taking the time to go grab an extra shirt. Or go shoot a bear, skin it and wrap himself in its still warm remains. Shakily exhaling the breath he'd held while Kitty had manoeuvred him through the wall, he punctually noted the fog that left his mouth. Folding his arms over his t-shirt clad chest, he took a careful step into the room, immediately drawing the attention of the one person who very likely managed to fill the spot of disliking him more than Bobby Drake.

Eden was sat on a metal chair next to the hospital bed that held her brother's still body. Her long hair was tousled and singed in places, and from what John could see, she was still wearing the clothes from the previous night under the oversized parka someone had offered her. Turning so fast at the sound of his presence, John was surprised she didn't snap her neck right off.

Upon recognizing him, her green eyes darkened dangerously, her jaw visibly tightening underneath smooth and lightly tanned skin.

John imagined it to look like a slow-motion recording of a car accident in mid action. Headlights against headlights, running engines meeting the screeching of brakes, feet fumbling to catch the right pedals. Both wanting to swerve out of the way whilst being aware of the inevitable collision that was just seconds away. He felt like a little boy again. He could literally feel years of living a crap life shedding from his cold body. He was back to where they'd left off.

Her glare was the same, her disappointment was the same and he was the same screw-up he was back then.

He wished that Kitty hadn't left him. Because he suddenly felt like lamely excusing himself to slowly back through the wall and go smoke so many cigarettes that he ended up hurling his guts out. But Kitty wasn't there and Eden was. Eden, disappointment and guilt was still there and there was finally no escaping it.

"I'm sorry."

It was the only thing that made sense. He was sorry and so he said it.

"Shut up," she almost immediately replied through tightly gritted teeth.

"Ed—"

"Shut up," she repeated, her tone as cold as the room, "Shut _up_, John."

She looked like she was about to stand from her seat. But she just shifted slightly, her strong posture faltering for a moment.

"You can't…you just…_can't_," she said, her eyes fixed on a spot on the stretch of white tiled floor between them. A confused frown flittered across her features before her deep green gaze snapped up to meet his eyes. "You left me."

"I didn't mean to—"

"But you did," she cut him short with words dripping with acid, "You _left_ _me_, and didn't say a word about it."

Something in John's shivering body stirred as she struck a chord.

"Hey, it's not like I didn't try!" he protested, feeling his temper rise, "Why the hell do you think I called you that night before I left?"

"That doesn't justify the fact that you left!" she all but shouted back at him, her face contorting in anger, "You could have written a note, left a message on the machine, a fucking crop circle in our back yard – _anything!_"

She was furious and John felt like he was trying to fight a lost battle. There was something in her eyes, in the way that she looked at him with disappointment clear in her voice, that told him that he couldn't just asshole his way out of it. He couldn't call her a bitch and be fine with having her hate him. She wasn't Bobby or Rogue or even Kitty. It wasn't fine to have Eden hate him.

"Do you see what you left me with, mate?" a third voice said, effectively finding the mute button to the ongoing scene.

Two pairs of eyes shot to the bed that stood like a silent, horizontal exclamation mark in the middle of the room.

"Gabby…" Eden said quietly, extending her slender fingers from inside the long sleeves of her jacket. Touching them to he brother's arm, she looked like a mother tending to her child.

"Ed," Gabriel said hoarsely, patiently – albeit weakly – swatting her fussing hands away, "Eddie, please."

His sister, born three minutes after him, sat reluctantly back on her chair. For a moment, John could see the fourteen-year-old girl he'd left, pouting somewhere underneath the hard surface of this young woman.

Meanwhile, John still stood now rather awkwardly by the wall – freezing his butt off.

"Long time no see, John," Gabriel said, turning his head to offer the pyrokinetic a lopsided grin.

"Yeah," John replied lamely.

Though the same age, Gabriel had always seemed years older than both John and Eden. Despite being sick, he'd grown tall and handsome, carrying himself with a poise that always left John realizing his own part as the rather average looking guy with the slight slouch. Some girls had called it his rebel stance ("kind of James Deany. Liek, omg, totally."). These were also the same girls who got a kick out of covering their binders with pictures of boys wearing eyeliner and so much wax in their hair that they could buff a Buick with their heads.

"So I'm guessing you've won the genetic lottery too," Gabriel continued with an amused look on his face.

John noted how Eden sat quietly on her chair while Gabriel spoke. But although she held an obedient silence, he could tell that she was bursting at the seams with words to add to the unfinished business between them.

"Yeah," John repeated, privately wondering if he was to finally just accept his verbal retardation.

"Your powers would have been useful back in Australia," Gabriel said, probably meaning it in jest, but it only made John feel worse. Now knowing that he actually could have done something to help if he'd just stuck around, he felt like a selfish idiot.

Hearing the door open, they all halted their conversation to redirect their attention. A familiar blue head poked inside, matching blue eyes throwing John a glance that told him that his illegal presence there wasn't as unknown as he had hoped. But Hank McCoy did nothing to show any kind of irritation or even a sign for John to promptly remove himself from the site. Instead, he turned to peer at Eden over his fogged-up glasses.

"Miss? Could I have a word with you?"

Eden gave her brother a look and received a wave of his hand, gesturing for her to go. Standing, she took her time to straighten her jacket before calmly and deliberately moving towards the door. Stopping with her hand on the door handle, she looked up to give John an expectant glare.

She was showing him out. No, correction: she was _throwing_ him out.

"Eden," Gabriel's still patient voice was heard again, "It's alright. I want to talk to John alone anyway."

John could practically see the atomic explosion in her head. She wasn't liking the situation- not in the least. But it seemed that whatever Gabriel said, she would listen and obey to, however reluctant she may be. If it was out of respect or something else, John didn't know.

"Have a seat, mate," the now black-haired young man said once the two boys had been left alone. A pale hand gestured to the rather uncomfortable looking metal chair.

Not exactly feeling like objecting, John walked over to sit down, gratefully realizing that it was considerably warmer right next to Gabriel. Resisting the urge to splay his fingers against the other boy's body, he decided to take a little conversational initiative for once. Asking Gabriel about what had happened up in Canada, John was relieved to see that the other boy seemed to have no problems explaining the situation at hand.

Gabriel McKenna's blood was apparently made of some kind of magma-like substance. Constantly just below the point of combustion, he could only keep from barbequing everyone within the closest vicinity if he was doused with a bucket of ice-water every three seconds. And living in Australia, this posed a variety of complications. Complications which were often solved by him lying in a bath tub filled with cold water and ice which was constantly refilled by his parents or Eden.

Eden, who had had a lengthy temper tantrum after John's sudden departure, got acquainted with her own mutation not long after. Which obviously did little to help her cope with a sick brother and a missing friend. But, as it seemed, she possessed some consolation in her newfound self. While her ability to emit that hefty light could cause temporary or permanent blindness, it also held a certain healing factor. Go figure. John would never have thought it when he was seconds from being blinded into a coma, _but whatever_.

Anyway, being alone with her sick brother as her only friend, she devoted herself to taking care of him, pushing herself to develop her powers to be able to help Gabriel.

"It worked for a while. But then I grew older and my defected mutation grew with me," Gabriel explained, glancing to his side where John now sat with him on the bed, dangling his legs in time with his.

"She was wearing herself out, trying to keep me cold and heal me at the same time. So, one night, after I'd nearly burned the house down, she'd prepared a frozen blanket in the freezer for me and dragged me out into the street. She told me that she'd written a letter for mom and dad that we'd be someplace safe, and before I knew it, she had us flying halfway around the planet in the blink of an eye."

Gabriel spoke with evident pride in his voice. His sister would do anything to keep him safe and for that he owed her his life. As with most twins, they had both gained losses and victories in different aspects of their lives. While Gabriel was the more endearing and sociable one, Eden filled the spot as the sombre loner. But then on the other hand, she was the one with the more powerful mutation, while Gabriel's was practically killing him.

"So she has the power of flight, speed and light?" John asked.

"Yeah. And a temper you don't want to mess with," Gabriel added with a light laugh.

John chuckled softly.

"I'll try to remember that," he commented sarcastically, making his childhood friend snort out loud.

"You know, once she gets over the shock that you're still alive and kicking, she'll be easier to talk to. I'll do my best to get some reasoning into her stubborn head – you know, warm her up a little. She's been holding onto this grudge for way too long, mate. You need to come back into her life, because I won't be around forever."

John's legs stilled for a moment before he turned his head to frown at Gabriel in confusion.

"What do you mean you---"

"I haven't told Eddie, but I think she knows," Gabriel said, his calm and collected manners not faltering for even a second, "I'm not going to make it much longer."

"Gabby, what the fuck?!" John exclaimed, failing to keep his feelings at bay, "Don't say shit like that!" The nervous edge to his voice was cutting through the cold air as he stared at his friend with a bewildered look on his face.

"But it's the truth! Would you rather have me lie to you?" Gabriel retorted, still sounding so damned composed. John was starting to get angry with the fact that he was just announcing his death with such carefree ease.

"No I-"

"Excuse me," a far too familiar voice said from the far end of the room.

Both boys turned their heads to see Kitty Pryde standing there, looking very apologetic.

"I'm sorry to interrupt. But John, Storm wants to talk to you," she said, her eyes straying to look at Gabriel who was eyeing her with interest.

"What? Right now?" John asked, annoyed that the ghost girl always managed to show up at the most inopportune moments.

"Yeah, right now," she confirmed, rubbing a hand to her arm.

John suppressed a groan while he ran a hand through his cool hair. (as in cold to the touch, not 'snazzy')

"Alright, fine. Tell her I'll be up in a minute," he said finally, "I'll uh, use the door."

Kitty gave a curt nod before turning to phase out through the solid white wall.

John wasn't surprised to see Gabriel turn to him with a questioning look.

"That your _bonnie lass_?"

John's eyebrows shot upwards at the cheekily asked question.

"Kitty? My girlfriend?" he said incredulously. "No, she's…" he paused to think, "Kitty's just…Kitty."

* * *

**Another A/N: **Gabriel totally looks like a short-haired and younger Adam Levine in my head. Totally.


	9. Shuffle up and deal

**A/N: **Sorry for the delay. Had some poo-shittyness going on with the upload. Problem solved.

* * *

**Shuffle up and deal**

"I understand you have previous affiliation to Eden and Gabriel McKenna, John."

"Yes."

"And what… exactly is the nature of this affiliation?"

"Uh. We were friends. And neighbours."

"In Sydney?"

"Yeah."

"How about now?"

"… I'm still friends with Gabriel."

"And Eden?"

"…not so much."

"Why?"

"It's a long story."

"I have time."

"It's a long story and I don't want to tell it."

"…Alright. You don't have to. Could you tell me what you and Gabriel talked about?"

"No."

"…"

"Can I go now?"

"John…"

"Look, Storm, if there's anything else you want to know about them – talk to them. Talk to Gabriel, if you can. I don't want to do this."

* * *

Some said that you could tell a lot about a person from looking at the way they slept. People who lay perfectly still through the night, tended to carry certain personality traits whilst those who slept all over the place, hogging all the covers and drooling down both pillows and people, were of a different calibre.

John slept with his back to the wall (given that there was one to begin with), with one pillow under his head - his arm tucked underneath it – and one pillow hugged to his chest. His covers started out being pulled up to his armpits, but always ended bunched up somewhere around his waist. Kitty, who had been the only one to see him sleep apart from the guys he bunked up with prior to his joining the dark side, had said that he kept his back to the wall for safety. That even in his sleep, he was careful to watch his back. John had only nodded in silence at the time of her sharing of thoughts, but realized that he probably agreed with her theory. It didn't seem so strange that his subconscious self would copy his conscious decision to stay on his guard.

Interesting sleeping position or not, John knew that he liked to sleep. He liked to sleep because it simply felt good. It felt good not having to see people shy away from him when he came walking down the hallways. Or see the look on Bobby's face when he entered the same room. The unflattering grimace - with the flaring nostrils and the tensing jaw – seemed to appear by automatic whenever the Iceman sniffed his presence. After the muscle-flexing at Alcatraz, John had learned that he too was particularly sensitive to feeling a slight shifting in the atmosphere whenever Bobby was close. The air seemed crisper, more chilled as he inhaled. He could only assume that the other boy felt a similar, however opposite, sensation.

On a Sunday, almost three days after his talks with Gabriel and Storm, John woke up – not by the feeling of cooler air – but from rays of late morning sunshine, mercilessly stabbing him in the face. Through his open blinds, shot slivers of sharp golden light, carrying a cheerful request for him to rise and shine. Grumpily tossing off the covers from his hips, he obliged to rise but definitely made no promises to shine.

Taking a quick shower to wash the sleep off his body, he pulled on some Sunday clothes and headed in the direction of the kitchen. Sunday clothes in this case not meaning suit and bowtie appropriate for the church bench, but a pair of grey sweats and a black t-shirt suitable for shovelling down cereal by the kitchen counter.

Shuffling down the hallway on his floor in a fresh pair of tube-socks, he noticed how none of the early-bird students he passed paid him any greater attention that usual. They threw him one or two glances at the sound of his footsteps, but then donned expressions of 'Oh, it's just John. Nevermind.'. Maybe he was being paranoid for expecting more. For expecting that word had somehow leaked that he'd been buddying up with the new people downstairs. But judging from the looks on the student's faces, he wasn't even sure to draw the conclusion that they knew that something new had arrived at all. Maybe these X-Men really were stealthier than he wanted to give them credit for?

Walking into the ground floor kitchen, passing yet another couple of girls who gave him the 'It's just John', he couldn't help the slightly confused frown that settled over his eyes. Only bothering to give a morning nod to Kitty who looked up from reading the paper, he went over to the fridge to grab some juice and milk for the cereal he planned on having. Getting another bland look from a smaller girl he'd often seen hanging around Jubilee, he stopped by the counter to set his things down, his frown deepening as he watched the girl calmly walk away. Was he being disappointed for not being whispered about? Had he gone mad?

"I didn't tell anyone," Kitty spoke, drawing his eyes to meet hers.

The frown still lingered slightly in his brows.

"I didn't tell anyone about you knowing them. Not a lot of people know that they're even here," she clarified, keeping her voice low because of the students who took their breakfast in the connecting lounge.

John's frown dissolved to be replaced by a look of slight disbelief.

"Surprised?" Kitty asked, cocking him a teasing brow. Not waiting for him to answer, she folded the paper and comfortably continued. "It's fun knowing something Jubilee doesn't, for once."

John chuckled at the triumphant look on her face as he walked over to grab the box of cereal that offered the least amount of artificial colouring. If he wanted to paint his insides, he'd eat crayons. Corn didn't naturally come in shades of purple and pink, so he sure as hell wasn't going to stoop so low as to eat a lie. Breakfast was breakfast. Uncomplicated and primitive. You eat breakfast because you're hungry, not because you're looking for a good laugh when you look at the contents of your chosen bowl.

"But having secrets without sharing them with someone kind of kills the purpose. It's better when you're two. Which is where you come in," the brunette said with a secretive glint in her eyes as John scooped up a spoonful of cornflakes.

He let the dripping spoon hover over his bowl for a moment before catching onto her unspoken trail.

"What do you know?"

"Well," Kitty started, motioning for him to pass her the juice, "I'm going to have a new roommate."

John processed her words as quickly as he could while his brain was still struggling to take off from the landing strip. Opening his mouth to speak, he was cut off by Kitty who had been quicker to swallow her swig of Tropicana.

"Yes, it's her," she answered his question-to-come.

"What? Seriously?" John managed to say, his spoon dipping back into the bowl with the uneaten cornflakes still on it.

"Yeah, Storm told me just last night. What, did you think she'd camp out in that freezing chamber forever?"

"No…well, no," John said, seeing the logic. "But aren't you like five girls in that dorm already?"

He knew that Kitty shared a room with Jubilee, Siryn, Rogue and that one girl who always swarmed around Jubilee (for whatever unknown reason). Squeezing another girl – and especially one like Eden – into that mess would surely prove to be a fatal move.

"We're switching things around. Marie's moving in with Bobby in his new room – you know, Jean's old one – because they're considered part of the staff and practically married. Jubilee, Siryn and Petra will keep the room we have now. And I'll get a new one with this girl, Eden."

John hmphed and gave Kitty a look of 'I'll be darned' before finally scooping up a fresh spoon of now half-soggy cornflakes into his mouth.

"Well, Kitty," he said after swallowing, "You're definitely in for a ride."

* * *

Knowing, thanks to Kitty, that Eden would be upstairs getting settled into their new room, John had decided to pay Gabriel another visit. This time prepared with a heavy jacket and the gloves and knitted hat that the ghost girl had told him to keep (and who was he and his broke ass to object?), he had had to wait for a while for Gabriel to wake up. During that time, he had taken the opportunity to see how the black-haired boy had worked to make the place seem less like prison cell and more like home.

He'd brought in a proper armchair and a teetering stack of magazines (mostly cars and tech stuff) which stood in a corner along with a reading lamp which offered a far cosier setting than the sharp fluorescent lights in the ceiling.

What interested John the most were the slightly singed and wrinkled pictures that had been carefully Blue Tacked to the walls. He guessed that they'd been hurriedly stuffed into Eden's pockets before the twins had taken off from their old street. The pictures were of the McKenna's gathered in the kitchen with the flowered curtains; of a very sour looking Eden after she'd been splashed with water from Gabriel's icy bath or of just Mr and Mrs McKenna. It wasn't without feeling a pang of jealousy that John looked at the smiling faces of a happy family. They had their problems but they still smiled through it all. Which was miles away from the crap mentality that reigned in his own family. If someone had a problem, they'd either drink it away or run to the nearest whorehouse.

David and Mary McKenna, the twins' parents, looked a lot like they had when John was little. With the natural grey hairs and the fine wrinkles around their eyes, they still seemed to radiate the same kind of care that always had John leaving their house feeling a little warmer inside.

When Gabriel had woken from his sleep – and not without calling John the Bad Santa for seeing him when he was sleeping and knowing when he was awake – the two boys had engaged in conversations about the past and the present. John made sure to dodge discussing the future in case the topic of premature death resurfaced. He had decided to opt for sudden ignorance in that matter, labelling the memory of hearing Gabriel say it as a figment of his twisted imagination. Gabriel McKenna wasn't dying. Don't be ridiculous.

"Eden sharing a room with another girl." The black-haired boy laughed incredulously at the sound of the alien concept. "Did you warn the other girl? Was it Kitty?"

"Yeah, Kitty. I warned her, but I don't think she took me seriously," John said, scratching the back of his head as he lounged in the armchair that they'd pulled up to the bed that Gabriel lay sprawled out on.

"She'll take it seriously soon enough," Gabriel commented, throwing a tennis ball into the air before catching it again. "I love my sister and all, but she can be a real pain in the arse. And she hasn't exactly had the best of experiences with girls. Did I tell you about her sending Holly Connelly to the hospital with a broken nose?"

John made a strange noise of shock in the back of his throat.

"_What?_"

"Yeah, it was a couple of months after you'd danced with the devil herself. They bumped into each other after school one day, and got into a fight because Eddie overheard 'Hobag Holly' saying that you'd left because Holly had broken your heart. Eden, being angry with you but still knowing that you'd never fall for Holly, jumped the girl and broke her nose against the bumper of Mr Garret's car."

"Holy crap," John breathed, his eyes wide in amazement and slight fear of what kind of damage Eden could do over a single wrong word, now that she had her powers.

Most of all, he feared for Kitty and her safety. Try as he might to deny it, but the phaser had grown on him. Though he avoided having to put a label on what she really was to him, she was unofficially probably the closest thing to a friend that he had apart from Gabriel. The McKenna boy had been clear to leave the past in the past and accept John as a welcome comeback in his life. It was as if those four-something years apart, had been nothing but a four-minute commercial break. Gabriel still talked enough for both of them, still had that lopsided grin that made every grave matter seem a little lighter. He was still the lovable boy next door. But John wasn't envious. It was like Jubilee had said about her eclectic (read: horrible) music collection: you need a little of the bad to really appreciate the good. So John wasn't too bitter about having to be the bad.

Calling it a night (or a late afternoon) with Gabriel, John made his way back to his room with a promise to come visit his friend more often ("Or else I'll start climbing the walls, John. No kidding."). This time, walking down the halls he noticed the difference in how people looked at him. The reactions he'd lacked that morning were suddenly blaringly present with clusters of girls whispering urgently amongst themselves when he walked by.

_"Here he comes. Kitty was looking for him."_

_"Yeah, she asked me too."_

_"Seemed upset about something."_

Something was up and he could only assume that it included a certain Eden McKenna.

Shuffling into his room and shrugging off his jacket, he barely made it to his desk before someone barged through his door, slamming it shut behind them.

"John!" Kitty all but screamed, looking like a wreck with her brown eyes wide and her hair standing on end.

"Kitty...?" he asked hesitantly, half expecting her to jump for his throat. She was looking positively mad. As in pre-Prozac crazy.

"Your—she—_unbelievable_!" she exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air in apparent desperation.

Running a hand through her messy hair, she chewed on her bottom lip before marching over to his bed where she took the liberty of flopping down with a frustrated sigh.

"What's going on, Kitty?" John asked, leaving his jacket over the back of his chair and placing the gloves and hat on the seat.

"Eden! We've barely spent a day together and she's already driving me insane! I can't even breathe in her general direction before she glares at me. After an hour in her presence I was honestly starting to feel sorry for ever being born. It's horrible - _she's_ horrible! I thought _you_ were bad, but you come off as a freaking Carebear compared to her!"

Kitty really did look like she'd been spat on and dragged through the mud by her ankles. Her odd confidence had taken a hard blow and he knew that another minute with Eden would probably have Kitty reduced to a twitching pile of mutilated mutant. The thought sent a shiver down his spine. Gabriel was right when he'd said that his sister had grown harder since they were fourteen.

"I'm not sleeping in that room with her, John. I'm not." Kitty folded her arms crossly over her chest, exhaling sharply through her nose. "I'll just have to bunk up with Jubes and Siryn…"

"Kitty, you can't just—"

"No, you're right," she cut him short, shaking her head and pursing her lips in thought. "Jubilee would probably squeeze something out of me." The brunette paused to think for a beat, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.

"I'll stay here with you," she finally decided, effectively turning John into a human exclamation mark.

"_WHAT!?_" he shouted, staring at her with protests practically cold sweating through his pores.

"Oh come on, John! I won't look when you change, I won't complain if you leave the toilet seat up and I have no problem with sleeping on the floor. You won't even notice I'm here!"


	10. Countdown to Meltdown – Phase One

**Countdown to Meltdown – Phase One **

**Day One – 11:37pm**

St. John Allerdyce was, by far, the biggest moron in the world. He had no idea how it had happened, but now that it had, he was sure he ranked as one of the top ten.

Katherine Pryde was staying in his room.

John was half expecting the four horsemen of the apocalypse to come knocking at his door, carrying sleeping bags and chick flicks starring Brad Pitt.

The petite brunette, his quasi-friend, had conjured an old lumpy mattress from somewhere and dropped it right in the middle of his room. The mattress smelled like dust and mothballs and – when John regrettably had taken a particularly good whiff – urine. He could only imagine the generations of bed-wetters that had leaked all over the thing throughout the years.

But Kitty had seemed unperturbed by it. In fact, she seemed like she'd prefer having raw meat strapped to her body before doing a swan dive into a pool full of sharks, than share a room with Eden. Which only made John wonder exactly what had happened to made Kitty so adamant to avoid her.

The school's resident computer whiz and his new 'roomie' ("Don't ever say that word again or you'll be sleeping in the hallway, Pryde.") had bed sheets that featured Albert Einstein, plaid flannel pyjamas and one of those monstrosities of an alarm clock. The round kind with two bells on top. The kind that would drill your brain to pudding. John had given it a disapproving look when she'd wound it up and set it between the three feet of carpeted floor that separated their beds.

He himself used an old electric one. The kind that would shut up if you chucked a pillow at it. With no classes to go to, he figured he didn't need anything that actually did the job of getting him out of bed at the right time. Just something to let him know that the sun was up and that all the good food would be gone if he didn't drag his ass out of been within the hour.

"So what do you want to do when you grow up?" Kitty asked as she lay on her back, her brown eyes turned to look at the ceiling.

"I _am_ grown up, Kitty," John pointed out, his position on his bed mirroring hers.

"Nineteen isn't grown up. You still have two years to go."

"Being legal and being grown up isn't the same thing," John retorted.

He heard her shift underneath her covers so he turned to his side to look at her. She was turned to face him, her head propped up on her hand, her hair already sporting the bed-head tousle.

"So you consider yourself to be a grown up?" she asked, her tone touching on being incredulous.

John could just make out the features of her face in the darkness of his room. The only sources of light being the pale silver moonlight that filtered through his blinds, and the amber glow from the hallway that snuck in from underneath his door.

"Yes, I do," John replied, confident.

"Why?"

He gave her a long look.

"Why? Because…I just do. I've done things…" his voice trailed off as he realized that he didn't really know what he was about to tell her. 'I've killed people', 'I've ruined expensive SUVs and it felt good', 'I joined the dark side, Padme.'?

Kitty gave him a sceptical look from her position on the floor.

"So have I. I was there too, you know."

"That was different."

"How? Just because I happened to be on the 'good side', doesn't mean I didn't do bad things," she lectured, setting her dark eyes to look straight into his.

John looked at her in silence for a moment, wondering what she'd really seen at Alcatraz. It almost pained him to think that she really had been stolen of her last breaths of childhood because of it. He didn't want her to feel like she had to grow up. She was only what, sixteen? Seventeen? She had a more kid stuff to do. Like kiss posters, send notes in class, get caught and crush on the teacher.

"Do you feel grown up?" John finally asked.

Kitty averted her gaze for a few seconds before looking back at him with a shrug.

"Sometimes."

A moment of silence.

"Don't push it, Kitty," he then said quietly, pulling his second pillow to his chest. "You'll get there when you get there."

"I know," she sighed, taking her head off her hand to lay it down on Einstein's printed face instead, "It's just…"

"I know," John murmured, closing his eyes and shifting backwards until he felt the familiar coolness of the wall through the back of his t-shirt. "Get some sleep, Kitty," he added through a yawn, "You've got school in the morning."

**Day Two – 00:23am**

"Come on, _please_ talk to me," Kitty whined, her chin resting on the edge of his bed, her brown eyes begging him to give in.

She'd been at it for almost an hour already. Tossing and turning on her mattress, fluffing her pillow every five seconds and quietly grumbling to herself. Finally, John had heard her practically scream into Einstein's goofy face before seeing her crawl over the invisible line between their beds to beg up close.

"_John_," she dragged out his name into an impatient whimper, her small fingers even reaching to grab a hold of his pillow, tugging at it to make him pay her some attention. "Come _onnn_, I can't sleep!"

"And you think robbing me of _my _sleep is going to make it better?" John growled, snatching his pillow out of her grasp.

"Yes," she answered simply, laying her head on the side to peer at him from behind thick, fluttering lashes.

John wanted to suffocate her with his hug-pillow ("D'aww, does widdle Johnny have a Mr Huggles? Yes he does, yes he _does_!" "…please die."). He wanted to whack her in the head with it and shove her out into the hallway where she could talk to the door handle for all he cared. Anything to just make her shut up and worm over to her side of the room and leave him be.

But as it seemed, she wouldn't go down without nagging him into another one of her random conversations, which could start with global warming and end with bunny rabbits and salad tossers. Sometimes, he really did fear for the lives of anyone who spent too much time with Jubilee. So in some way, he was glad to have been able to offer an escape from that.

But Kitty still couldn't sleep. And apparently, it was his problem to solve if he ever wanted to catch some Z's of his own.

God, he hated babysitting.

"Alright, fine. What the hell do you want to talk about?" he said in a gruff, opening his eyes just in time to see a bright smile nearly consume her entire face.

"Anything! Books, movies, music, science, food, pets, gardening, cars---"

"Kitty! Please, just…pick one," John interrupted her listing of every single topic of conversation on the planet, restraining himself from slapping a hand to his forehead.

"Oh alright," she said, sounding a little miffed.

She fell silent for a good couple of moments, almost leading John to believe that he'd miraculously managed to silence her. That was, until she drew a small breath and he thought he saw her cheeks turn a shade darker when he looked at her.

"Alright, here's something," she said, as if to prepare him, "When did you have your first kiss? And I mean a _real_ one, not like some pre-school peck on the cheek."

For the first time since she'd announced her sudden insomnia that night, John openly stared back at her.

"You've got to be kidding me. Did you just ask me…? I can't believe you just asked me that. Jesus, Kitty."

"Hey, I'm curious!" she said in her defence, her eyes glittering with amusement as she watched him squirm underneath his plain, white covers.

"Well. Don't be," he grumbled, feeling increasingly uncomfortable with the situation.

"Can't. It's in my nature. Now just answer the question. It's not that hard."

He took a moment to glare at her whilst clutching Mr Huggles tighter to his body, as if it would serve as protection against his vicious new 'roomie'.

"Fourteen."

The girl at the edge of his bed gave an interested 'Hm!' together with an attentive nod of her head.

"So how'd it go?" she then asked, locking her eyes to his.

John thought about the memory of Holly Connelly in Finn Byrne's parents' bedroom and let out a short snort.

"Complete disaster," he said, not even bothering to hide the wry smile that stretched his lips. "The kiss itself was alright by first-time standards, I suppose. A little sloppy and faintly gross, but okay."

Kitty laughed at that, shifting to rest her forearms on his mattress, knitting her fingers together under her chin.

"So how about you, Miss Katherine?" John returned the question with a challenging quirk of his eyebrow.

Kitty's time to snort.

"Fifteen. Complete disaster," she said, her embarrassed expression growing in time with her furious blushing. "He thought I was someone else. When he found out I was the wrong girl, I was so mortified that I accidentally phased through the floor. Ended up in Mr Summers' room where I broke down in tears because not only had I just had a horrible first kiss, but my teacher had seen me in my three sizes too small Snoopy nightie."

'Shocking' wasn't nearly enough to describe the hysterical fit of laughter that had John clutching his stomach while tears sprung from his eyes. He hadn't had a good laugh in what felt like years, and now he was practically bursting his spleen with laughter. And it was all thanks to Kitty. And her Snoopy nightgown.

When his laughter had settled and Kitty had recovered from failing horribly with the task of containing her own, they comfortably carried on with their conversation. John retreated to merely nodding and offering other subtle reactions to the things she talked about. Like when she told him of how she'd liked Mr Summers the best, because he'd taught the subjects that really interested her; science and technology. She even admitted to thinking that he was "a total hottie" at the time of her arrival at the mansion. To that, he had appropriately grimaced at the starry-eyed look that had invaded her face when she remembered a particularly fond moment.

He had nothing against the late Mr Summers, but he really didn't see the reasons of attraction. Kitty had tried to elaborate on the matter by pointing out jaw lines, lips and something about the way he walked. To which John had given her a blank look and congratulated her on noticing that the man had been a living and not-too-disfigured human being. Her reply had been a swift punch to his arm, which only made him tease her more.

Several jabs, bruised feelings and other topics later, Kitty made a halt in their ongoing talk about butter-flavoured popcorn by expressing her sudden need for water. Apparently, all the talking had made her throat 'all dry and itchy'.

"So go have a drink in the bathroom," John said, lazily gesturing towards the door across the room.

Kitty grimaced at his suggestion.

"We don't have any glasses," she pointed out.

"Okay, first of all: _we_ don't have anything. _You_ have things and _I_ have things. Second: you can drink from the tap," John answered, finding it important to make it perfectly clear that her stay there wasn't going to be temporary or even remotely lengthy. Ask him just how long he was planning on letting her free-load on his barely existing hospitality and he probably wouldn't be able to answer. But he definitely knew that she wasn't staying long. They could get caught (by Storm who had yet to be informed of the new sleeping arrangements). Or worse; Kitty could get _ideas_.

"Okay. Ew," Kitty replied, her disapproving grimace turning into a disgusted frown. "Do you have any idea how unhygienic that is?"

"Does it look like I care?" John shot back.

"John!"

Another one of her scolding callings of his name.

And before John even knew what was going on, Kitty had launched herself into a lecture about the importance of being clean and respecting other people's needs and being a good host and about a thousand other things that he failed to comprehend.

Needing a quick exit, John grabbed Mr Huggles and shoved it in her yapping face, silencing her for long enough to tell her not to touch anything while he went downstairs to get them some water. In glasses.

"Thank you, John," she said sombrely, "I knew you'd be---"

"One more word and I'll dump arsenic in your water," he threatened as he groggily made it from his bed to the door.

Grumbling to himself all the way down to the kitchen, he took a mental note to either kick Kitty out first thing in the morning, or set up a scroll of rules. First would be to lower her standards in every aspect of her life to match his. Which included drinking from the tap, disobeying the alarm clock, not eating from all food groups and not owning any CDs by a bunch of lip-synching pretty boys.

He was the man in their bizarre arrangement and he was going to let her know about it.

…right after he was finished being whipped into getting her water.

His grumbling turning into quiet curses over females and their stupid subliminal mind games, he walked into the kitchen, marching straight for the sink.

It wasn't before he's stuck his hand into the overhead cupboard that he noticed the other person, sitting quietly – observantly – by the kitchen counter. Slowly retracting his hand, as if to apply to the idea of no sudden movements, he set the one glass down by the sink before fully turning to look at her.

"Eden," he said, coolly – albeit slightly apprehensively – acknowledging her presence.

The girl gave him a bland look.

"Judas," she said in the same fashion.

John resisted the urge to groan out loud.

His further resistance to give her a response to her obvious insult resulted in a loaded silence, underlined by the hard lock she kept his eyes in. Feeling tempted to look away, John firmly decided that if he was ever to remain the badass, the rebel, the _man_, then he'd better not back down. So he kept his eyes on hers, taking the opportunity to note that the dark rings that she'd carried when she'd first came had faded slightly. Her eyes were still as intense as they'd been when they were fourteen; still clover green from her Irish heritage. But the disappointment and anger that had been spilling over the edges of her irises when they'd last seen each other, was nowhere to be seen.

Instead, she looked at him with an almost challenging air, daring him to make a move.

But he didn't. He didn't move. And when she finally broke their eye-contact to glance down at her own half-empty glass of water, he saw it as a point won on his part.

"So I talked to Gabriel," she suddenly said, looking up again, expressionless.

John studied her face, trying to remember if she'd been so hard to read when they were younger. Her face had lost it's childish roundness, the apple cheeks had shrunk away to reveal nicely angled features. Despite it being close to winter, she still carried a slight Aussie tan that had left the tip of her discrete nose a little burnt and chafing. Her face was framed by lost strands of dark auburn that had escaped the messy ponytail that held back her hair.

"Yeah?" he replied, trying not to let show that he probably knew what Gabriel had talked to her about.

"He told me to forgive you," she said, swirling her glass around on the countertop, her gaze following the water splash around inside, "Said that you'd already said you're sorry and that I was being immature for not accepting it."

She let out a strange huff. Like a merge between being amused and…not being amused.

"Who said I wasn't accepting it?" she then added, meeting his gaze, "I mean, you're an ass – fine. I'll accept that now. Maybe I didn't when you ditched me four or five years ago, but now I do."

John couldn't help but copy the same amused-but-hey-maybe-not huff before his retaliation.

"So you being a loud bitch has nothing to do with me leaving you?" he asked, knowing full well that he was stepping dangerously close to the edge.

This time, he noticed how her long, calculating look came with the slightest curl of the corner of her lips.

"Nope. That's just me being me," she said, leaning forward on her elbows, visibly relaxing.

"Good to know," John replied before grabbing his glass to fill it up with cold water.

"Gabby said you've done some pretty fucked up stuff since you left," Eden said once the water had stopped running. "Something about joining the dark side."

John gave a wry laugh. He hadn't expected Gabriel not to tell her. She was, after all, his sister and his closest friend. John had told Gabriel the basics; that he'd made some more bad decisions, turned people down and been a general asswipe. Nothing too detailed, just the jist of it all. He wanted to say that he couldn't help himself telling Gabriel, that the guy just had this thing about him that made you spill the beans. But the fact was that John had needed to tell someone. Someone that wasn't Kitty, someone that hadn't been there. Someone he was sure wouldn't judge him. It was funny how that was with Gabriel. How he always remained so fucking…_pure_. John had once heard Mrs McKenna say that even though Gabriel was such a sick boy, they always thought of him as their angel. Corny as it may have sounded, John found himself agreeing – wholeheartedly.

"Yeah," John answered her finally, taking a sip, "Don't get too excited though. It's nothing I'm very proud of."

He looked up to see an unreadable expression flitter over her face.

"Typical asshole syndrome," she said calmly, finishing the last of her water.

And with that, she stood from her seat, leaving her empty glass on the counter, and walked out of the kitchen without throwing him a second glance.

Meanwhile, John remained standing there, looking faintly ridiculous with his glass of water in one hand and a baffled look on his face. Had he just had a civil – well, somewhat – conversation with Eden? Did she really not scream bloody murder to wake up the entire mansion? And had he really heard her say that she'd accepted his apology?

Emptying his glass in the sink, he wondered what on earth he'd managed to finally do right, to be granted something other than crappy happenings. Completely forgetting about the roommate waiting for her water, John made his way back to his room, only to find Kitty fast asleep on her mattress and the lights in the bathroom switched on.


	11. Countdown to Meltdown – Phase Two

**Countdown to Meltdown – Phase Two**

**Day Three**

John's third day with Kitty still using his room as a refugee camp, had gone by quite uneventfully. When he'd woken up, she had already left for her morning class; leaving her belongings in a neat stack beside her perfectly made bed. The lack of her presence obviously made it more difficult to throw her out. And even more so when he walked into the bathroom to find it cleaned and with a new pair peach-coloured towels hanging on the towel-rack. She'd even chucked his miniscule bar of soap in the bin – replacing it with a dispenser of liquid soap that smelled of vanilla, jasmine and clean cotton. In other words: as girly as anything could smell without actually being liquefied female.

While the thought of walking around smelling like Kitty Pryde scared him more than an angry mob of clowns did, he couldn't help but give an appreciative (or at least accepting) shrug at the kind gesture. Maybe he could learn to compromise. Or how to successfully dodge all passing noses when he left the safety of his room.

His slim breakfast of dry muesli (much thanks to him not coming downstairs until after the male seniors' mad food rampage) had been followed by some slacking with Gabriel, who'd been delighted to hear about John's midnight meeting with Eden. Yes, his actual word had really been 'delighted'. John had looked up at him from flipping through the cold pages of an issue of _Motor Trend_ to tell him that unless he wanted people calling him a pouffe, he'd better start talking like a normal person.

After Gabriel had delightedly whacked John upside the head with the aforementioned car magazine, the two boys had proceeded to talk about the quickly approaching holidays. John being as broke as the next hobo, confessed that anyone expecting anything from him (which would be the modest bunch of Kitty, Gabriel and possibly Eden) better be a great fan of macaroni and glue. Gabriel had – in his typical Gabriel way – said that more often than not, the best gifts weren't material. That just doing something special with someone graded higher on the scale of holiday gift joy. John had retorted with the raucous remark that as skilled as he may be, he didn't think neither of them would be very thrilled about having him surprise them with sexual favours. To which Gabriel decided that more whacks around the head with _Motor Trend_ was the only appropriate response.

"Hey John, don't you think it would be cold enough outside to let me---"

"No."

Gabriel had looked up at him, watching his expressionless face, half-hidden behind the then rather crumpled magazine.

"What do you mean 'No'?" the black-haired boy had asked, frowning in confusion.

"I've thought about it and I say no."

There had been a moment of thoughtful silence.

"You think of me?"

The question had been so unexpected that John fumbled to catch the magazine that had slipped out of his grasp. Looking to meet Gabriel's green eyes, he'd failed to hide the glare in his own when he'd seen the amused look on his friend's face.

"Aww, John, I'm touched," Gabriel had teased, clutching his hands to his chest and fluttering his eyelashes at him.

"Get your head out of your ass, pretty boy," John had replied, setting the magazine aside to rub some warmth into his cold hands. "It's not safe out there. Kids could crowd around you, girls could get all hot and flustered, someone might light up a cigarette…" John had counted the reasons to why it wasn't a very good idea to let him get out of his chamber.

He didn't like having to show himself as the caring guy, the one who looked out for other people. But when you really didn't have that many people, but yet you grudgingly knew that in some fucked up way, you really needed them – you really didn't have much choice. Really.

So when he'd refused to back down and Gabriel had reluctantly agreed to stay put in his frosty habitat, John had bid his friend goodbye for the day – thinking that it was best to pull out when he was on top.

When he'd returned to his room, he'd seen that Kitty had been there to drop off more of her belongings. A stack of folded clothes had been put on top of his dresser, a pair of powder blue slippers pushed halfway underneath it and a few more books thrown on _his_ bed. Wondering how long he was going to stick with the thought of 'considering compromising', he'd swept the books from his bed and laid down to wait until Kitty got back from her last class.

Which wasn't until two and a half hours later. And by then, John had managed to get through three naps, two 80's rock albums(1) and about three-hundred reasons as to why Kitty Pryde needed to move her ass out of his room.

But when the brunette finally walked through the door, she'd announced her need for complete silence while she wrote her essay on something John didn't bother catching, before stuffing her ears with cotton. His every attempt to communicate had been swatted away with a flick of her wrist and he'd eventually found himself facing defeat – on his own damn turf. Needless to say, St John Allerdyce was pissed off beyond belief. Wanting to physically remove her from his room, but knowing that she'd easily escape his grasp if he tried, he finally shouted some incoherent string of profanities in her direction before grabbing a jacket and heading outside.

Half a dozen cigarettes and several frustrated grunts later, John was still pacing a path around the lawn in the back of the mansion. The grass was cold and slippery underneath the soles of his worn Vans, sending his feet skating off in the wrong directions when he turned too sharply. Which, of course, made him grumble things like "shit", "fuck" and "crap", only adding to the trail of curses that followed him around the invisible square he followed around the lawn. Jamming his hands deep into his jacket pocket, he took another lap before heading towards the fountain to seat himself down and perhaps (just maybe) work on his lung cancer.

Halfway across the lawn, he saw her sitting there.

Her hand was dipped into the still water of the pool, drawing abstract patterns and pushing small waves to hit the clusters of leaves that floated on the surface. She seemed completely unaffected by the cold.

And his presence.

Sitting down on the edge, a few (safe) feet away, John glanced her way for a moment. She wasn't wearing much; jeans, sneakers and a large, dark grey hooded sweatshirt. She hadn't looked up to meet his eye, but she gave a small nod before retreating her hand to wipe it against her knee. He watched her do it, silently and with such confidence in her movements. Had he done the same under someone else's watchful gaze, he knew that he'd radiate something tense, something so infinitely far from her apparent calmness.

Feeling the edginess creep into his posture, he curled his fingers around the packet of Marlboro reds in his jacket pocket, pulling it out to grab a smoke to put a damper on his nerves.

Wait. _Nerves?_

"Got one to spare?" she asked suddenly, almost making him drop his cigarette into the water.

He looked up from cupping his hand around his Zippo. Her gaze was on him, her body turned in his direction. She gave his hands, the cigarette and the lighter, a pointed nod.

"Um, yeah. Sure," he said, exhaling his first breath of nicotine before watching her get up to walk over.

Watching her sit down right next to him, he took another drag of his cigarette – just in case. Offering her the package, he duly noted the brush of her cold fingers against his warm as she reached to take a stick. He kept his eyes on her as she pinched it between her lips, while she pushed her hair behind her ears before he raised his lighter to the end of her cigarette. He watched as she suddenly reached her hand to stop him from sparking up a flame with the wheel of the Zippo; a strange half-smile playing on her lips. Her green eyes flickered down to the lighter and then over to his hand before raising to meet his questioning gaze. Taking the cigarette from her mouth, she deepened her look.

"Humour me, John," she said and he could feel her breath, warm and soft, hitting his face as she spoke.

He looked back at her for a moment before flashing her a sly grin. Flicking up a flame with his lighter, he then coaxed the fire into his palm, letting it grow to a warming ball for a moment. Past the heated, vibrating air between them he saw a satisfied look settle into her features. Shrinking the fire to a small flame that danced around the tips of his fingers, he raised his hand to the cigarette that she'd brought back to her mouth. The fire extended to snake round the tip, lighting up a glow to the packed tobacco.

She leaned back to exhale the smoke she'd drawn, her eyes glancing down to his hands as he snuffed out the flame. A curious look passed her face before she gave a short, unexpected laugh.

"I'm impressed," she said, crossing her legs to rest her wrist on her knee, the cigarette held between two fingers.

He gave her a sidelong glance, exhaling through his nose to give a baffled sound. Fourteen years had gone and Eden McKenna was no less odd than she'd been when they first met.

"That principal you've got here, Storm, asked me if I'd finished school yet," she said between taking drags of her smoke.

John looked up at her, not to really say something, but more to let her know that he was listening _without_ having to say something.

"I lied," she continued, "Said I was done with high school, not interested in college."

"But you're not? I mean, done with high school," John said.

"No," she laughed lightly, "Not by far. I stopped going when Gabby got worse."

John nodded.

"So what are you going to do here?" he then asked.

"Stay with Gabby," she answered, not even giving his question a second thought. The answer was there, printed black on white. She thought her place was with her brother and that was that. And something in her tone, in the way she said it, gave John the unnerving feeling that Gabriel hadn't told her yet – and she didn't know. At all.

"Don't you think you should start thinking about yourself?" John asked, shaking back a lock of brown hair that fell over his brow.

Eden scoffed audibly.

"What, like you did?" she retorted, giving him an accusing look.

John sighed. Audibly.

"Eddie…"

"No," she interrupted him, "I know what you're trying to say. And I've made my decision. I'll be wherever Gabby is. He needs me and I…need him."

She had hesitated to say it. John could tell. He could tell when someone weighed between sharing parts of themselves that they'd held secret for a long time. He could tell because he sounded just the same when Kitty made him talk.

He wanted to grab Eden by the shoulders, shake her and tell her the truth. That her brother was going to die and that she was going to end up standing there alone, if she didn't stop trying to be so cold and hard and strong enough for the two of them. But he knew that it was Gabriel's business to take care of and that he had no right to reveal it. Still, he couldn't help the swelling feeling in his chest.

"I saw him today," John said, deciding to bring the conversation away from the temptation of blurting out secrets. "He looks…better."

His words drew a small smile to settle on her lips as she held her gaze fixed to an upturned chunk of grass on the ground.

"You weren't the only one to see him," she added, sounding somewhat sardonic about it.

John looked up at her, brows furrowed in confusion. Why would she be bitter about seeing him herself?

"John…?"

The two sitting by the fountain looked up to see a very dishevelled Katherine Pryde, standing where the hedge opened up to make room for a stone pathway. Her flannel pyjamas was hid underneath a wool coat, her hands tucked underneath her arms and her eyes fighting not to stare at the other girl.

There was a moment of painfully awkward silence.

"I… I fell asleep and when I woke up…you weren't there," she tried to explain, not realizing how much damage she was making by doing so.

John ran a hand through his hair, wishing there was more left of his cigarette for him to draw into his system.

"Kitty just… go back to bed. I'll be up soon," he said, internally cringing at how it must've sounded to Eden.

Eden, who was sitting there with a dark and calculating look on her face, obviously knowing something John didn't.

"Oh, um. Okay," Kitty replied, looking like she wanted to sink through the ground.

Half a second later, she'd disappeared back to the mansion, and John was finding himself caught underneath a hard, pointed look from Eden.

"She's not my girlfriend!" he blurted out in his desperate defence.

Her silence was worse than any shouted 'asshole!'. Much, much, worse. At least when she was shouting at him, he knew exactly what she was thinking. Now he was left fumbling in the darkness. She kept her silence – and the pointed look – as she stood from the edge of the fountain, flicking her cigarette butt into the water.

"Right," she then said, voicing the contempt he'd seen in her eyes.

And for the second time in two days, she walked away from him.

The only difference this time, was that she did glance back. But with the look of disappointment that it carried, he deeply wished that she hadn't.

**Day Four**

Kitty had been seeing Gabriel.

Kitty also snored and put her toothbrush in the same cup as John did.

But most importantly: Kitty had been seeing Gabriel.

John didn't know what feeling he wanted to give in to first. On one hand he wanted to drag Kitty's mattress out in the hall and set it on fire; and on the other he wanted to take a moment to just gape at her like some fucking goldfish. It wasn't that he thought she should have asked for permission…or maybe it was? Because she did stay with him in _his_ room and she was seeing _his _friend and…it just didn't make any sense.

Or maybe it made too much sense.

Maybe he should be kicking himself for not taking greater notice to the signs. Why else would Eden kick Kitty out of her own room? John scrubbed his hands over his face as he sat on the edge on his bed with Kitty in front of him on the floor. It was just too much information.

She'd snuck downstairs whenever she'd gotten the chance. Whenever John had thought that she'd been studying or hanging out with Frosty and his wife. John couldn't help but feel a little like the clueless moron in the picture.

"John…"

"Kitty," he said calmly, tiredly, stopping her from saying whatever it was she wanted to say. "You can't stay here anymore."

"What? Just because I've been seeing Gabriel? You can't kick me out, I can't stay with Eden! She'll fucking kill me!" Kitty exploded, desperation clear in her shaky words.

"Well maybe you should have thought of that before you started seeing him!" John finally yelled back, shocking the brunette into clamping her mouth shut.

Sitting back on her heels, Kitty glanced guiltily down at her hands which she'd folded in her lap.

"Jesus, Kitty," he sighed, standing up to pace around the room. "What the _hell _were you thinking? Didn't you see _anything_ up in Canada? Gabriel is her _life_, Kitty! She can barely stand _me_ going down there. I'm surprised she hasn't blinded you and broken your nose against Scott's Harley yet."

He ignored the quizzical look on her face.

"I…this is so fucked up. High school fucking drama," he spat as he grabbed his jacket, demonstratively leaving the knitted hat and gloves on his desk.

"Wait, where are you going?" Kitty asked nervously when she saw him head for the door.

John answered by slamming it shut behind him.

* * *

"Gabriel, you've got to help me."

The black-haired boy lifted his head from his bed to peer at his friend, before propping himself up on his elbows.

"Good morning to you too, mate," Gabriel said, his voice rough with sleep.

John had barged into his chamber, stopping by the door to shoot his demand at his sleeping friend, hoping that his stomping feet had woken him.

"What do you need my help with?" Gabriel went on to ask, sitting up to look at John questioningly.

"Kitty."

Watching Gabriel's face fall into a look of resignation, John silently cursed as he got the morning's revelation confirmed by the third and final party.

"So you know," Gabriel said, not looking at him.

"Yeah, I know," John said, sounding angrier than he intended, "When were you planning on telling me?"

"Look, it wasn't---"

"No, you know what?" John interrupted with a shake of his head. "Nevermind that. I've got more urgent matters on my hands. I need to get Kitty out of my room. But she's refusing because she won't share her room with Eden. So I need you to talk to your sister."

Gabriel looked up with a bothered expression.

"What do I have to do with that?"

John gave a frustrated sigh before pacing over to slump down in the cold armchair. He wasn't good with confrontation or problem-solving through civilised conversations. He was more of a hands-on, punch the problem kind of guy. Unfortunately for him, the people involved in the current problem would either punch back, stick him inside a solid wall or calmly tell him to seek some anger management (which would probably annoy him as much as a punch would).

"You're her brother! It's _your sister _who'll be kicking Kitty's ass if she ever sets foot in their room again. Eddie only listens to you," John argued, watching Gabriel melt a frozen glass of water with the warmth of his hand. Downing the contents in one sweep, the black-haired boy turned to look at him.

"That's a load of bull. She listens to you too."

John stared back at him for a moment before laughing at the inane words.

"No, seriously. Talk to her. Kitty's driving me up the walls."

Gabriel eyed him thoughtfully before returning to his bed, sitting hunched with his hands planted on either side of him.

"How about _you_ talk to Eddie and _I_ talk to Kitty," he proposed.

The brown-haired boy gave him a deep frown.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because you just want to get into her pants," John pointed out.

"And you don't?" Gabriel was quick to reply, raising him a challenging brow.

"No! She's my…"

"Girlfriend?" Gabriel offered with a teasing glint in his green eyes.

"_No_," John ground out, "She's my…Kitty."

The boy with the lava blood gave his friend a blank stare.

"…'_your Kitty'_? Are you even listening to yourself? Did you not just hear how disturbing that just sounded?"

"Fuck off," John all but growled back. "Kitty's my friend, alright? She's like my annoying little sister."

"So? I can't talk to her because of that?"

John didn't like how smart Gabriel was being with him. It was making it considerably harder for him to stay level-headed and somewhat reasonable, when in reality all he wanted to do was throw a fit, punch and kick a little and then go have a smoke. Then, when the cuts had stopped bleeding and he felt as high as a house on the nicotine, they would shake hands and be just fine. Happy as a fucking camper. But when dealing with Gabriel, violence wasn't really an option. It would be like pushing over someone in a wheelchair. You just didn't fuck with the disabled. Not so much because it was morally wrong, but because they probably were really skilled on wheels and would probably run your ass over until you looked like a bloody waffle.

"Look, I don't want her to get hurt," John said, keeping his calm.

"Who's saying I'm going to hurt her?" Gabriel answered.

John gave a dry laugh.

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe this little thing about you dropping dead at any given moment?"

"My point exactly. Don't you want to give a dying man some happiness?" he asked, obviously trying to play the blame game.

"What makes you think Kitty will bring you happiness?" John retorted, hating how childish he sounded.

"Well she got through to you, didn't she?"

That was it. Gabriel hit the spot and the gong-gong of victory rang soundly in the cold chamber they were in. John gritted his teeth at his obvious defeat.

"I hate you."

Gabriel chuckled warmly.

"No you don't. You love me and want me to be happy. Preferably in the company of pretty girls."

John gave it a moment of thought.

"Nope, I'm pretty sure I hate you."

* * *

**A/N:** (1) - Journey and Queen. Because my John likes his silly rock. (PYRO IS NOT EMO.) 


	12. Macaroni and Mistletoe

**A/N: **I hope everyone had a nice Christmas. To those of you who don't celebrate - I hope you had a nice weekend. As an added holiday bonus (okay, I was painfully bored), I made a banner for this story. Although, I must warn you. If you already have an image of what these characters look like, you might not want to have it ruined by this. So take a look at your own risk. The image is linked in my profile.

* * *

**Macaroni and Mistletoe**

The agreement had been for Kitty to move back in with Eden and for Eden to stop with the more or less subtle hints at possible murder. Gabriel was a grown man and completely in charge of and responsible for whatever decisions he made concerning his love life. No matter how much Eden or John resented the thought of him canoodling with Kitty (or hearing him say 'love life').

A visiting schedule had been tacked to the inside of the girls' door, making it near impossible for them to ever bump into each other when seeing Gabriel. It had also been agreed that Kitty and Gabriel wouldn't discuss their relationship with neither Eden nor John. If they happened to let anything slip, they would owe the victim one dollar; two if it was particularly disturbing.

The latter rule had proven to be greatly appreciated by John, who had needed the extra cash for the three gifts he'd decided to purchase after all. Don't get him wrong, he still didn't feel much for the holiday, but he didn't fancy coming off as a _completely _heartless jerk when it came around to the exchanging of gifts. Mind you, he wasn't aiming for becoming the year's unsuspected Mr Niceguy. His gifts had not been wrapped in glossy wrapper (more like yesterday's newspaper), nor did they come with heartfelt messages of sweet, sweet loving just because some guy in a dress was born several hundred years ago. His cards (folded printer paper) all held the same words of "Merry Christmas /John" – no more, no less.

Gabriel had, however, exploded in a fit of laughter when he'd ripped off the newspaper to reveal the box of penis pasta(1) and a tube of glue that John had gotten him. They had all decided to deal with the present swapping in private to avoid any awkwardness. Well, at least keep it as low as possible considering the circumstances.

After Gabriel, it was Kitty's turn. Taking it in his room, he couldn't help but laugh when she came bounding in, looking like she'd dipped herself in glue and excitedly rolled around in red satin and glitter. Even her hair was sprinkled with tiny silver stars that fell to land all over his floor, and her stockings featured dancing reindeer and snowmen. She was like a holiday acid trip, gone horribly wrong.

John didn't know if it was because of her excessive intake of gingerbread men, women and innocent children, but for some reason, Kitty found it appropriate to crush him in an impromptu hug when she saw the knitted hat and mittens he'd given her. John being…well, _John_, he had just stood there stiffly for a moment before awkwardly patting her on the back and asking her to please let him go. Several gruelling moments later, she'd let him loose with a slightly drunken look on her face. She'd then blubbered something about knowing that he really was a good guy after all. But John wasn't really listening, since he was busy cringing at the prospects of figuring out what to do if she suddenly started to cry. Luckily enough, she didn't.

After Kitty, there was finally Eden. She and John had, in some strange way, reconnected over the two weeks that had passed since the girls had called it a truce through talking to the boys. Reconnecting in this case meaning that their conversations weren't as loaded with bitter tension as they initially had been. And that there wasn't as much spite behind the name-calling. Because even though they had agreed to bury the axes of war, they were both still irreversible pottymouths who seemed to have a hard time letting go of the shits, the fucks, the craps and the classic "You smell" versus "You smell _more_".

Now, the thing with Eden and the issue of finding an appropriate (or appropriately inappropriate) present for her, was that John hadn't. Well he _had_, but as they sat in the empty downstairs lounge with the musky scent of pine from the overly decorated Christmas tree hanging heavy in the air, he still didn't know if he wanted to give it to her. It was a little…cheesy, to be honest. At least if you asked John. But it was the best he could do, since he'd already decided against the even cheesier options of a teddy bear or a crayon drawing.

Trying to pull off looking indifferent, John watched her as she sat on the other end of the couch, tearing open her present at an agonizingly slow rate. She wasn't the type who carefully picked at the tape and unfolded the paper according to how it had been wrapped, but she still moved slower than John would have liked it. Or maybe it was just his nervously held breath that was slowing things down. Reminding himself to breathe, he dared a glance at her face as she finally held his gift in her hands.

"Socks," she stated flatly.

John couldn't detect any kind of reaction in either direction on the emotional scale, so he decided to push his luck by pointing out the ingenious details of his very thought-through present (read: purchased in the very last minute whilst sporting a desperate sweat).

"They've got wombats on 'em," he said, nodding towards the socks in her hands.

Eden turned them over to see the brown little mammals that had been stitched to the sides, and for a moment, her expressionless face made John feel like the biggest loser on the face of God's green earth. Socks? With _wombats_? Had his excessive wanking finally tugged his brain down to his gonads?

"So I see," he heard her say.

Holding his breath, he was ready to kiss their rekindled friendship goodbye. And because of _socks _of all things! Watching her for another intense second, he then heaved a poorly camouflaged sigh of relief as an incredulous smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

"They're lovely, John. Ridiculous, but… lovely."

Cue John feeling less like a loser and more like…a smug motherfucker.

Never could he have known that seeing that smile on her face would make him feel so good. Suddenly, he wished he'd had the money to buy her more socks.

He fought to keep his smug grin from completely consuming his face when she tugged her plain white tube socks off her feet, to put on the ridiculous wombat ones he'd given her. She looked down at her feet and let her smile widen as she wiggled her toes. Looking up, she gave him her silent thank you before reaching into the pocket of her hooded sweatshirt.

Moments later, John was one brand new Zippo lighter richer. On one side, were his engraved initials, on the other; the word 'asshole' in the same Old English font. Lucky for her, John did have a sense of humour and politely thanked her for giving him a reminder of his now permanent title. He took a mental note to leave his old lighter on the shelf in his room, right next to the self-help book he'd gotten from Kitty. Apparently, he still lacked elements of shiny happiness and supposedly, the copy of _Twelve Steps To A Happier You _would do the trick.

John, unsurprisingly, had no intentions on opening it. Ever.

Gabriel's gift to him was as of yet just a promise. A promise of a surprise that was going to arrive sometime during the evening. In other words, John had good reason to believe that Gabriel was sitting in his chamber, frantically gluing together the Eiffel tower out of toenail clippings to give to him. He wanted to go down there to tell him not to sweat it and that he was fine with nothing. But the schedule read Kitty Time and John dreaded even thinking of the ways in which she could possibly be "helping him out".

"I can't believe you've put up with this for five years," Eden said suddenly, pulling him out of his inner worst-case-scenarios.

John looked over to the girl sharing the couch he sat on; leaned forward, with her elbows on her knees, she gazed out through the fogged-up windows of the lounge.

"Put up with what?" he asked, his own gaze trailing the profile of her face.

"That," she said, gesturing towards the white landscape beyond the panes of glass, "The weather. You're Aussie, you were born to fear flakes." Eden kept her eyes on the thick snowflakes that floated past the windows before shuddering and drawing her hoodie tighter around her body.

"I can't stand it," she added in a mumble, making him chuckle.

"You get used to it. Most of it is Storm's work though. Getting into the holiday spirit and shit," he said, flicking with the lid of his new lighter.

A breath of a silence filled the space between them before he heard her inhale softly.

"Still sucks," she said, sounding very much like a small child. Like herself, ten years earlier.

John nodded in agreement, hearing the loud laughs and shrieks of joy from the ongoing snowball fight outside.

"Well, if it's of any consolation, we have the entire mansion to ourselves."

It wasn't until he saw her turn to face him with a curiously amused expression, that he realized how much it had sounded like a wide open invitation.

An invitation that wasn't met with complete and utter disgust.

John felt like someone had just kung-fu'd him in the chest. She wasn't going to pull a face, recoil and go 'Ew'?

Interesting.

He knew that Eden Evangeline McKenna was a young woman, and that he (St John Allerdyce) was a young man. The simple logic of biology let him know that they fit - at least on the level of the anatomical puzzle. Of course, he'd taken notice of her…lady bits. He wasn't a complete dunce. She was an attractive girl, with her hair and eyes and nose and smooth skin and that rare smile and…

He caught himself in the horrifying fact that he was sounding very much like a certain miss Katherine Pryde.

"…John?"

He shook himself from his thoughts to look at the auburn-haired girl sitting next to him. She was frowning at him, having obviously said something he'd failed to hear.

"Huh?"

She didn't bother hiding the roll of her eyes.

"What? What did you say?" John asked as she averted her gaze before leaning back in the couch to prop her right foot up on the seat.

"I'm not going to reward your lack of attention," she retorted, sounding eerily much like Storm on her '_John…_' days.

But before John had had the time to compose his best 'Well at least I don't smell! _Nyah_!', in barged the entire student body under a chorus of 'CHO-CO-LAAATE! WE GUN' GET US SUM CHO-CO-LAAATE!', hurdling John's brain into thinking that they were being caught in a battle of oompa loompas against the cast of South Park.

Wet boots squeaking against polished floors, pushing, shoving and high-pitched shrieks of Christmas glee stabbed past their eardrums as they sat in momentary paralysis, staring in horror at the constant stream of children filling the connecting kitchen. John watched as Bobby went to start up a fire in the fireplace, with Rogue coming to stand starry-eyed and silly-looking next to him. Feeling the rise of agoraphobia (and whatever phobia triggered by excessive _mush_) in his chest, he threw Eden a quick glance, happy to see the same discomfort on her face.

"Wanna get out of here?" he asked.

"Don't ask stupid questions, John."

* * *

Walking down the decorated hallways of the mansion with Eden had the palms of John's hands sweating. _Really _sweating. Like, the fucking Niagara Falls coming out of his hands. And he was hating how discreetly wiping them dry, was proving to be a frustrating impossibility. He'd tried jamming his hands into the pockets of his jeans, crossing his arms over his chest and grabbing hold of the sides of his shirt, even frantically wiping his hands on his thighs when she wasn't looking.

Although, by the questioning frowns he caught from his sidelong glances, he reckoned she was well aware of his problems with perspiration.

So, to smooth things over, he began hurl out the most random topics of conversation he could think of. Everything from Greenpeace ("A place for people who never got laid in High School to get some ass to the sound of whale song") and hardwood floors, to venereal diseases ("I thought scabs died with pirates? "Oh no, it's still around." "…too much information" "No! I didn't – I don't…!") and politics.

"Less than a year ago, they tried to push for this 'mutant cu--- What the…?"

John was cut off in mid-sentence when all of a sudden, everything went pitch black. A nanosecond later, he heard Eden yelping out some prime examples of foul language as she stubbed her toes against a piece of furniture.

"Eddie? You okay?" John asked, first trying to squint into the darkness, then widening his eyes to a creepy stare in an attempt to adjust to the lack of light.

"Yes," he heard her grumble somewhere to his right, "I'm fine."

"Probably a blackout," John unnecessarily stated as he blindly made his way forward, getting his Frankenstein on with his arms extended in front of him. Feeling Eden brush past him, he heard her walk into something else, forcing him to bite down on his own tongue to keep from laughing.

Remembering the lighter in his pocket (put there to keep it from accidentally slipping from his sweaty fingers), he fished it out with his freshly wiped hand and flicked open the lid. But before his thumb even touched on the wheel, a bright flash of light made him take a cautionary step backwards.

Realizing where it came from, he pursed his lips in a highly unimpressed manner (although his inner fanboy of all things mutant was swiftly composing and choreographing patriotic cheers).

"Show-off," he muttered, giving the now softly glowing girl another sidelong glance.

From behind the hazy light that seemed to radiate from something that went deeper than just her skin, Eden McKenna gave him a cocky smirk.

"Where are we anyway?" she asked as she wandered ahead, peering around corners and moving the shadows around in the process.

"Well," John started, following her, "There are books…in shelves…so my guess would be… a library."

The moving light ahead came to a stop, and although John could only see her back, he knew that she was grimacing at his cheek. Not able to help himself, he smiled at how predictable she could be when it came to their bickering. He'd somehow always strike a chord with his sarcasm, and she'd go passive aggressive. If he decided to keep strumming, she'd eventually turn to physical aggression by swiftly punching him. Mainly on the arms, but it really depended on how much of an ass he'd been. Eden never took any consideration to the mansion rule of never using one's powers against the other residents. To avoid having to walk down hallways and be eyeballed by nosy kids, she often took to speeding past gatherings of people, leaving a trail of fluttering papers and hairdos knocked askew in her wake.

John however, never used his powers on her. Why? Well, it just didn't seem right. He had no trouble singeing Kitty's hair or chasing kids with swarms of burning flames. But somehow, doing it to Eden went beyond his range of rebellion.

Leaving him with a muttered 'Fucking smartass', Eden had disappeared into the suspense section, letting her light filter through the gaps between the shelves that separated her from him.

Struck with boredom, John wandered aimlessly down the aisles, hearing the worried or panicked shouts from somewhere on the floors below. Reading the backs of the books that were in eye-level, he felt the approaching urge to set some dusty pages on fire. Just for the hell of things. Something to keep his mind off---

A shrill shriek cut through the relative silence in the library before the light went out for a second time, and something came to a full frontal collision with John's disoriented body. Stumbling backwards, with his right arm caught between himself and what he assumed was Eden's slender figure, the couple soon hit a nearby bookcase, sending it to fall over with their tangled bodies following suit.

An almost deafening silence instantly swelled to fill the darkened library. Blindly blinking against the mass of warm hair that covered his face, John soon felt the thick pounding of gathering blood in the back of his head. His body had taken the blow of her fall, keeping her from hitting the sharp edges of hardback books that dug into his back. Eden, who had laid perfectly still for the moments it had taken John to note the throbbing of his head, now softly groaned against the bare skin of his awkwardly bent neck.

She was laying halfway on top of him, her left arm caught underneath him and her right hand splayed against his chest. Trying to push herself up, she pressed down and dug the edges of the books deeper into John's back.

"Ah, _fuck_. Eddie, wait," he grunted, sputtering some of her hair out of his mouth.

Wriggling his arms free, he fumbled to grab a hold of her shoulders, only half hoping that he didn't brush against any inappropriate areas. Because he was, after all, just a man.

That said, he couldn't help the involuntary half-moan, half-groan that escaped his tightened throat when her knee rose against his…area. Far from able to control himself, considering the unexpected string of events, his plan of gentle untangling quickly went out the window. His grip tightening on her upper arms, he all but threw her off his body, screwing his eyes shut in a silent apology at the sound of her irritated gruff.

"What the hell was that?" he asked when he'd made it to his feet, his eyes now able to make out shapes and shadows in the darkness.

Eden was standing not far away, her body silhouetted against the pale blue glow coming from outside the window. Her hand was in her hair, her posture lacking the usual indifferent confidence, her skin not showing any signs of the light that was a part of her mutation.

"Eddie?" he asked, not quite knowing why the air suddenly seemed warmer, thicker, more heavy to inhale.

"It was…I thought I saw a rat. Or something," she answered, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

"Oh. Okay," John answered dumbly.

Glancing down, he could make out some of the damage they'd done. The bookcase had fallen over to knock another askew, leaving about two hundred books scattered on the floor. Flicking open the lighter that he'd miraculously managed to hold on to, he lit up a flame to cast some light in the room.

"Explaining this will be interesting," he said as he scanned the mess.

He heard Eden snort to his left. Turning to look at her, he met her face – aglow with the warm amber of his controlled fire – with a smile.

"Come on," John said, beginning to make his way over copies of King and Kafka.

"What? Are we just going to leave it like this?" Eden asked.

John stopped in an archway that led into a small sitting area. Hearing her walk up to him, he turned to look at her again, meeting a pair of intense green eyes.

"Well unless you feel like cleaning it all up…" he started, gesturing to the toppled shelves with his hand, making the ball of fire dance around in mid air.

The auburn-haired girl looked at him for another moment, her bottom lip caught between her teeth in thought, before shaking her head with a light laugh of disbelief.

"You're a right case, aren't you?" she said, cocking her head to the side as she narrowed her eyes at him with a small grin.

"So they say," he replied with a chuckle, rolling his head back to work out a kink that had settled in his neck from their less than graceful fall.

His eyes catching something hanging above them, he suddenly stiffened and swiftly looked back down again – effectively wiping away all chances of dodging the now inevitable awkward moment. Having seen him react to whatever was overhead, Eden looked up to see the small green leaves and white berries, tied together in a bunch with a red ribbon.

Mistletoe.

John quickly felt the air thicken again, slicking his lungs with a sticky coat of something he somehow didn't want to rid himself of. His eyes flickered between hers, to the stray strands of auburn on her cheek, to her lips – moist with an unseen lick of her tongue. The ball of fire he still held in his hand swelled for a moment, heating up the small space between them. The base of his neck was itching from the tickle of his damp hair, his mouth was going dry and his hands were beginning to sweat again.

Eden's warm breath whispered wordlessly against his neck, reminding him of how close she was. How easy it would be to just lean in, to give in and _just do it._

But something was holding him back.

The look in her eyes. Hesitation.

"Don't even."

John frowned down at her. He was taller, yes, but not by much.

"Don't even think about it," she repeated, more determined this time. Averting her gaze, she took a cautionary step away from him.

"What?" John did his best to keep his voice from touching too high pitches.

Understanding that he was getting the brush-off, he switched to defence.

"You think I was going to _kiss you_?" he asked, snorting in feigned incredulity. "Do I look like one to submit to stupid holiday traditions?" He gestured to the mistletoe that hung above his head.

But Eden only gave him a long, shrewd look.

John stared back at her, swallowing his bruised pride, his feeling of immense stupidity for even thinking the thought that maybe there was a chance at something…_better_. He should have known better than to think he'd managed to redeem himself enough to deserve better – to deserve _her_, of all people.

Shaking his head, he snuffed out the flame in his hand.

"Whatever," he mumbled darkly, casting her an empty look before walking past her.

As he made his way to the exit, he didn't hear the broken sigh that left the heavy lungs of the girl he somehow, stupidly, had fallen for.

* * *

**A/N: **(1) – pasta shaped like male genitalia. Ingenious. 


	13. There Are Certain People

**A/N: WARNING:** This chapter contains **people doing the deed**. And I'm not just saying this to lead you on and then screw you over just for kicks. I mean it. So be prepared or, if you're a prude, skip this chapter. As usual, there will be foul language. Because I can't write anything without it.

Soundtrack to this chapter has been The Fray, The Fray and nothing but The Fray. I thank them for being so oblivious to my existence that I can shamelessly steal part of their lyrics to my chapter title. The full title of this chapter should be _There Are Certain People You Just Keep Coming Back To_. But it's obviously too long so…

* * *

**There Are Certain People**

A foot tapped, out of rhythm, against the scarred leg of a coffee table. Plain, white tube sock with some lint from a green fabric. The tapping was more of a muffled thumping, hardly anything to get hot and bothered about. That is, if you weren't zoning in on it, intentionally willing yourself to be annoyed with it.

The foot tapped a little faster.

"Will you stop that?"

Green eyes looked up to meet dark blue with a challenging quirk of an eyebrow.

"No, I won't," she answered his spat request, "Do you ever hear me complaining about the _incessant _clicking of your lighter?"

John's eyes narrowed darkly.

"No," he ground out, "Because actual words would probably be fucking redundant with those looks you give me. And no," he quickly, pointedly, added, "that wasn't meant as a blatant move in hopes of getting to bone you."

His careless arrogance had Eden staring back at him, offended. But he took no consideration to her feelings. Or at least so he forced himself to.

"I'm just making myself perfectly clear. You know, to avoid any _awkward misunderstandings_," he added, emphasising the words he knew would push her buttons.

Eden's offended stare was quickly replaced with the familiar bitter fury that seemed to be making a full recovery since the incident in the library. The incident that, if you asked John, never happened. Why? Because St John Allerdyce did not succumb to hormone-induced lusts, which may or may not have been triggered by senseless infatuations. Giving in to feelings associated to butterflies and pink clouds was not like him. Seducing poor, defenceless minors in bars just to have a quick shag before battle – _that_ was more like him.

But since Eden – if it was the moment when he left her, or the second she came back into his life – he was having trouble ascertaining what was truly him or not. He was starting to slip up; doing things that held no logic, or were in any way related to his previous mindset.

And since the thing in the library – the thing that never really happened – he was spiralling out of control. Well, more than he was before. One minute he could be hiding out in his room, hovering by his window, watching her have her daily smokes like some sick pervert. The other, he'd scour the mansion to seek her out just to drop another unnecessary comment. Just to squeeze a reaction out of her. Anything to make her look at him – even if it came with a punch to his face.

He was acting like an immature prick. Some pre-pubescent, pimple-faced loser.

And now Eden was glaring at him again, for the umpteenth time in the few days that had passed since Christmas, the socks, the blackout and the library.

"You know what?" she said, standing from her seat to tower above his slouching form, "_Fuck you_. Fuck you and you fake accent, John," she sneered acidly. "I can't believe I gave you a second chance. You're no less the asshole you were when you left."

He met her eyes, preparing for a physical blow to the head. Would she grace him with the fist or the open hand this time? But as one breath became two, he realized that she was giving up. The look in her eyes held something he couldn't decipher and it shook him to his very bones. She was walking away from their fight and John knew that he'd finally gone too far. The almost-kiss had been the trigger to the jumbled avalanche that had swept them into the troubled waters of the past four days.

And now she was cutting the many tangled lines that held them together. Again. And for a fleeting second, John feared that it would be the last.

Watching her retreating back, he heaved a sigh and scrubbed his hands over his suddenly very tired face. But no sooner had he cursed his lack of tact and smooth operating with the other sex, before he felt the couch dip beside him.

"Are you making me sleep with Jubilee and Siryn again?"

John looked up to see Kitty sitting next to him, her knees drawn to her chin. Her words had been said light-heartedly and the way she cocked her head to the side to look at him curiously, told him that she wasn't there to fight him.

"What the hell did you do to her, John?"

It was such an innocent question, spoken so softly, so kindly that it almost made him feel even worse for indirectly dragging little Kitty Pryde into it.

Of course, he didn't answer her. He never admitted his mistakes.

"Alright, I get it. You don't want to tell me," the brunette accepted his terms, "How about I do the talking for you?"

She didn't wait for his reply.

"Whatever it was that you did – or didn't do – has really gotten to her. Maybe you called her a bitch one too many times? Or maybe she didn't like your present?" – John snorted at that, making Kitty smile – "Whatever it was, it has her acting more like an escaped lunatic than before. Now I don't know how good friends you were before…but you being an ass isn't easy to put up with. For anyone."

John averted his gaze and flicked open his lighter. Letting the pad of his thumb rest against the jagged wheel, he slowly rolled it, though not hard enough to spark a flame.

"Just…leave her alone," Kitty said with a small sigh, "Stop lurking around on our floor, it's creeping out the freshmen. You don't have to say something every time you see her, and you could probably do without the extra cigarettes a day you've started taking. Yes, I've seen you out there. You obviously need to sort out your head – both of you. So just stay away and shut up, basically. Let me have a full night's sleep."

Glancing over at her, he could tell that the tiredness went deeper than just the dark shadows under her eyes.

"It isn't all my fault," John said quietly, not really knowing what he meant himself.

"I know," she answered, shifting in her seat.

"She's more fucked up than I am," he added.

Kitty snorted softly.

"Probably. Although sometimes it's highly debatable."

There was a moment of thoughtful silence.

"Gabriel wanted to talk to you, by the way," Kitty said suddenly.

John looked at her questioningly.

"What about?"

The phaser raised and lowered her shoulders in a small shrug.

"He wouldn't tell me. He insisted on talking to you about it first."

There was evident discontent in her voice, and during any other circumstances, John would have felt sickeningly smug about being first priority. But as it was, he only had the options of feeling either more, or less, like a jerk.

* * *

"Ah, finally," Gabriel said as John entered his chamber.

Jumping off his bed, he stalked over to his brooding friend and gave him a brotherly embrace, underlining it with dramatic kisses to each of John's cheeks. The pyrokinetic irritably pushed his laughing friend away, wiping at the traces of instantly cold saliva that lingered on his skin.

Shooting the back of Gabriel's head a dark glare, he went around the chamber to slump down in his usual armchair.

"My dear St John, your presence here has been deeply missed. Should I take offend that I must send my beautiful maiden to lure you to my lair?"

John gave Gabriel a deeply unimpressed look.

"Cut the crap, Gabby," he grumbled tiredly.

The other male gave him a patient look.

"I hear you've been sending fireworks up my sister's arse again," the black-haired mutant stated, changing the subject and getting a poorly hid groan in reply.

"I don't want to be the one to stick my nose in other people's business, but it doesn't seem like a very healthy relationship to me. You managed to call it a truce for what, five seconds? But hey, if you get a kick out of being at each other's throats at all times, then by all means, do carry on."

"Don't be a smartass," John shot back, pushing himself off the crunchy seat of the armchair to pace around the room. "She's just so…"

"Ambivalent?" Gabriel offered.

"Yes!" John all but shouted. "Just when I think I've got her all figured out, she turns on me and slaps me in the fucking face."

"Yeah well…that's Eddie," Gabriel said calmly, but they both knew that there was more to it.

Whatever it was, it had to wait, because Gabriel had something to tell him that required asking John to sit down - a request that always made John feel uneasy. He was guessing that the matter probably had something to do with the Christmas surprise that never came – due to a certain blackout and other related events.

"I've got some good news," Gabriel said once he'd gotten seated. "Dr McCoy and Storm came to me before Christmas to talk to me about my condition. They said that there was something called a cure that was tested less than a year ago. But it got stopped, for some reason, and never reached us down under. Anyway, they said that if they could run more tests on me, to see how my body would react once I'd taken it, maybe I could…be better."

John was staring blankly back at his friend once he'd stopped talking. The words had came in a pounding rush, hammering into his head, stirring memories of the past months and the chaos that came with the release of the cure. While his chest began to heave with a burning anger, he saw the look on Gabriel's face; happiness, anticipation and most of all: hope.

Did he really want to be the one to take that away from him? Did he really want to say the words, to release the burning bile in the back of his throat?

The small considerate man in his head told him no. But the flash of anger in his heart roared the contrary.

"A cure? They told you about _"the cure"_?" his tone was dark and taunting, "That it would _help_ you? _Storm_ said that?"

In the blink of an eye, John was on his feet again, now furiously stomping his way around the chamber.

"Do you know what Storm said about that cure all those months ago, when they made the announcement at Alcatraz? She said that we didn't need a cure – because there was nothing wrong with us!" John shouted, balling his hands into white-knuckled fists. "There is nothing wrong with being a mutant! That cure –," he stopped to jab a finger at his friend, his breath coming out ragged and uneven. "That cure, will make you half a man, Gabriel. It will take away the only thing that makes you different from every other fucker out there."

Gabriel stared back at John. At the lifelong friend who was screaming at him to decline the only chance of him seeing his next birthday. John could see the shock in Gabriel's face. He could see how he didn't understand. How he didn't see that John didn't want him dead, just wanted him to reconsider the offered choice of giving up what made Gabriel what he was. _Who _he was.

But with his inner turmoil of distorted feelings that he'd gathered during the past couple of days, John was in no condition to properly explain himself.

So he walked away.

And he kept on walking for minutes and hours later later. Around the school grounds, through the small forest a few minutes away, until the sun went down and eventually came back up again. And then again.

Two days later, John felt like he'd been walking for as long as he could remember. His hands had been jammed so deeply into his jacket pockets that his knuckles hurt. The seams had even started to unravel. But what did he care? What mattered when your best friends either hated you or were about to sacrifice part of themselves to survive?

When everything else started to unravel – how much did threads matter?

He'd slept where there was shelter to find, and eaten when a bum had been kind enough to share, but other than that he had just walked. Walked until his feet hurt and then numbed and suddenly nothing existed beyond what he could see through his heavy-lidded eyes.

But now, he was shaking snow out of his hair in the front entrance of the mansion. He was back to what barely passed as home, and in a way his head was clearer, or at least emptier than two days earlier.

He had timed his return to the one time of day that he knew no-one would be up. At five in the morning, every student would be enjoying their Christmas break in bed. And the teachers would be another two hours before waking up to deal with administrative things, and early-bird parents who called to check in on sweet little so-and-so.

But as he unzipped his jacket and shrugged it off his shoulders, he caught a movement to his left.

He didn't even know why he was so surprised to see her. He should have known that his luck had screwed him over and abandoned him for something better a long time ago. John almost snorted at how easy it must've been for it to find "something better".

They stood staring at each other for a few moments, long enough for John to feel the sudden ache in his limbs and realize how wet his socks were.

"John?" she asked, as if she wasn't really sure that it was him.

He looked away.

"Where have you been?"

He gave a dry laugh, running a slowly towing hand through his damp and slightly greasy hair. Where had he been? He had tried to be there, with her, trying to fix whatever it was that had broken. And she'd literally slapped him out of there. So he'd left her alone, just like Kitty had told him to.

He looked up to meet her gaze, finding it bloodshot and weary.

"Where have I been?" he echoed sardonically, "Why do you care?"

Eden looked back at him in silence, but didn't make any further attempts of talking to him as he gave her a last empty glance before walking up the stairs.

He felt like Pyro again. The Pyro that didn't care. The guy who radiated cocky arrogance and recklessness. The one who didn't fall in love.

By the time he'd made it to his room, he almost had himself convinced. Almost. While he basked in the cosiness of reacquainting himself with his inner, cold-hearted bastard, he knew that something had changed. _He_ had changed. And he only had one person to find responsible for it.

Eden Evangeline McKenna.

The girl who had invited him to his room when they were little, who had made him laugh when his family gave him no reason to be happy, who had punched Holly Connelly because she insulted him – even if he had been the one to betray her. She was the girl who had waited for him to come back, at five in the morning.

Why was she still giving him second, third and fourth chances when all he did was let her down?

The questions swarmed inside his heavy head as he stalked unsteadily into his room. Hearing the door click closed behind him, something else suddenly clicked in his head and before he even knew how it had happened, he was tearing apart everything within his reach.

Books were swiftly swept from shelves, chairs were kicked to punch holes in the walls, tables overturned and bed sheets torn to pieces. His new lighter, the one she'd given him, was held in his closed fist, ready to be used when he felt like it. Which conveniently enough was when he'd pushed everything to the middle of his room.

His chest was rising and falling with hot, rough breaths as he held the flame in his hand.

_Do it. Burn it, Pyro. You're still in there. You can do it. Burn it down and build it back up. You've done it before, you can do it again._

_Do it._

_Do it!_

"Shut up!" he roared, throwing the cluster of flames at his broken window, watching the fire lick along the jagged edges of smashed glass before being sucked out into the creeping daybreak.

Kicking the sad pile of things, he paced around to slump down on the frame of his bed (since his mattress had joined the broken chairs and dusty books on the floor), but stopped in mid motion at the sight of her standing in the open doorway.

Her eyes scanned the damage unblinkingly, a look of strange understanding passing over her features.

"Eden, what the---"

He didn't know whether he was supposed to feel angry or shocked or even… no, he really had no idea. So his face, and his words, came out in a jumble of expressions that washed over him like a tsunami bearing the basic essence of What The Fuck?

But whatever he wanted to say, didn't matter to her. Because with a shake of her head, she backed up a few steps, looking like she was about to turn and leave.

"I can't…" she murmured, her green eyes flickering to everything in the room but him.

"Eddie?" John asked, taking a step towards her.

The move made her look up at him and for the moment that their eyes met, he saw something flash in her gaze. Something that made his chest tighten painfully. Something that forced him to stay when she closed the distance between them.

Her mouth crashed onto his with such force that he could feel his lip breaking against the edge of his own teeth. But when slender hands dug into his shaggy hair, pulling him closer, deeper and harder into her, he could care less if bombs suddenly began to fall from the skies.

There was nothing gentle or sweet about their kiss. It was rough and needy, almost to the point of being too much – an overwhelming sensation of getting too much at once. But John was willing to overlook the pain of her fingers curling tightly around locks of his hair, the fumbling way their teeth collided, even how hard it was for him to breathe when he leaned down like that.

He wanted it. He wanted the pain, the rusty taste of blood from his bleeding lip, the tongue that was snaking warm and wet around his own, the desperate sweat – the girl.

High on adrenaline and lust, he roughly caressed her hair and firmly cupped her face, marvelling in the sound of the moan that escaped her throat when his mouth left hers to kiss down her exposed neck.

Hands pawed and tugged and twisted at fabric, urgent to discard the items of clothing that were separating them from the feeling of skin against skin. John was so lost in the shaky task of pulling her shirt over her head that he failed to note that he was already down to nothing but his boxers. And as if he wasn't distracted enough, the sight of a half-naked Eden surely had him reduced to a blubbering fool.

"Ed…you…" he breathed, his eyes shamelessly roaming the body that was standing a mere foot away from him.

In her simple black bra, green boy shorts and wombat socks (John almost felt like crying at the sight of the stupid things), she looked nothing like the women off the pages of FHM. She was of average height, well proportioned, and with a pair of breasts that just about filled a C-cup. Though she was a slender girl, her stomach wasn't entirely flat, but had a small swell that evened out nicely to the slight curve of her hips. To magazine editors, she may have been just another average girl.

But to John, and he spat in the face of clichés when thinking it, she was perfect. Perfect because she didn't shy away when he reached around to unclasp her bra. Perfect because his hands fit to her every curve, because she leaned into his touch and wordlessly asked him for more.

"_Fuck_," John groaned as she pressed her body flush against his, putting emphasis on the places that mattered.

"Eden you're – _ah_ – so fucking…"

Biting down on his earlobe, causing him to hiss through his clenched teeth (and maybe, just maybe, glare down at the mass of auburn hair that pushed up against the side of his face), she effectively cut him off.

"Tell me I'm beautiful or any other sentimental crap your horny mind can think of, and I swear to God, I'll crush your balls with my bare hands," she growled hotly, her breath rushing against the shell of his ear.

"That a promise?" he teased with a sly grin.

Eden pulled away to give him a hard look before shoving his boxers past his hips and grabbing a firm hold of his family jewels. Gasping, John nearly doubled over from the unexpected and slightly morbid rush of pleasure and pain. Supporting himself against her shoulder, he fought hard to regain control of his limbs.

"From now on, you only speak if you want things to go faster, harder and deeper. Do you understand me?" she asked, looking him square in the eye.

"Yes, okay, got it," John answered quickly, earning himself a smile – one of those rare ones that made a sticky kind of warmth spread through his entire body – and a quick kiss on the lips.

The following one hour and seventeen minutes of that morning, would be remembered by John as a jumble of tangled limbs, sweat-slicked skin, a broken chair digging into his side, Eden's face and lips and eyes and _God, that ass!_, the sound of distant alarm clocks, the sound of his name spilling from red and swollen lips and – oh _fuck _yes - how she softly glowed when they both had ridden the waves of orgasm and lay in a sticky embrace on his bedroom floor.


	14. Shake, Rattle and Roll

**A/N:** I'm not dead! Merely eaten alive by this thing called college. I really (reallyreallyreally) appreciated the feedback on the last chapter and hope you'll enjoy this one as well. In a little while, I'll be changing the rating of this fic to M, because I'm probably being far too bold with my plot and language to keep it at an innocent T. 

**Warning: **Lots of fluff. …le gag.

**Shake, Rattle and Roll a.k.a. Trouble In Paradise**

Stray particles of dust floated through heavy air to land in John's right nostril, making him slap a groggy hand to his face to swiftly kill the creeping tickle. Lying halfway on top of his mattress, with his legs sprawled out on the cluttered floor, he stretched a wide yawn and rubbed some sleep out of his eyes. Glancing around, he noticed – with a small grin – the other body that had curled up a few inches away on the same bedding. She had managed to yank some of his shredded covers around herself and appeared to be lost in a comfortable slumber.

Remembering the events of their morning together (and taking a mental note to save several copies on his brain's hardrive), his grin widened as he crawled closer to her, poking her arm until she stirred. Watching her crack open her eyes and peer at him from underneath a confused frown, he distantly wondered how many guys before him had seen the same thing. But when her confused frown turned to a rather irritated one, and she aimlessly swatted at his face with her hand, he pushed all thoughts of other guys from his mind.

Because he really had to be a complete idiot to think of other men when a close-to naked girl was lying within the reach of his arm.

"Okay, _ow_," John said with a slight laugh as her finger hit him square in the eye.

"Serves you right for waking me," she mumbled.

But instead of turning away from him, she scooted closer to steal his arm and lay her head down on it. Feeling the warmth of her body so close to his, John's stupid grin was well on its way to reaching silly proportions.

"You're naked," she suddenly murmured, her breath brushing against the indeed naked skin of is arm.

Glancing down, John noticed that more of him than just his arm was being exposed to the world. Not finding any suitable clothes within his reach, he grabbed the closest book, opened it and used it to cover his private parts.

"Better?" he asked, peering down at the face that rested on his bicep.

"Much," she answered sleepily whilst snuggling closer and giving John a small idea of what heaven would be like in the process.

"You know," he said as he ran his fingertips up and down the slender arm that now laid across his chest, "This morning was really _ow_! Eddie!"

John gingerly rubbed his left man-boob after she'd given it a hard pinch. Glaring down at her, he watched as she shifted to meet his befuddled stare.

"Seriously John?" she said, giving him an incredulous look, "_Pillow talk_? Are you _kidding_ _me_? What kind of a nancy boy are you?"

"I wasn't--!" John tried to protest but quickly realized that oh God, he _had_ made a rather lame attempt at pillow talk. But that still didn't take away the stinging pain that lingered from her brutality.

"Alright I'm _sorry_. But Jesus, Eden. I don't know if I can keep this up if you're going to be so violent about everything."

The auburn-haired girl snorted at his childish whining.

"Who said we were going to go at it again?" she mocked with a cockily raised brow, "And don't pretend you don't like it rough. I heard you this morning, Mr _Bite Me Again_."

"I _did not_--!"

"_Nancy boy_," she sing-songed, immediately making him swallow what was left of his bruised pride.

"I don't like you," he muttered in reply, however still pressing his lips to her forehead.

"I don't like you either," she answered, hugging him closer.

**First Day in Eden**

He knew that she knew. He didn't know _how_, but she did. And now he was making a point out of avoiding her. Not as easy as it may sound, when the person in question could walk through walls and knew all of your not-so-secret hide-outs.

"John!"

And now had refrained from quietly tailing after you, to loudly hollering your name.

John felt like smacking a palm to his forehead.

"Not now Kitty!" he shouted back at her, quickening his pace as he passed the fountain that he initially had aimed for.

"Stop running like a little girl, I just want to talk to you!"

John had turned on her so fast that the petite brunette actually gave a strangled half-scream of shock. Towering over her, breathing like some kind of ferocious beast (okay, asthmatic cow), he stared her down before thrusting a hard finger into her face.

"I do _not_ run like a _girl_!" he growled through gritted teeth, only absently aware of the fact that Kitty had absolutely no idea why that particular comment had rubbed him the wrong way.

The girl stared up at him in silence, slowly nodding and taking a careful step backwards before he got any clever ideas of getting physically aggressive.

"I just want to talk." Kitty spoke very slowly, holding her hands up in defence.

"Well _I_ don't," John snapped, ignoring the way his words sounded as if they came more from a hormonally imbalanced woman than a manly young man like himself.

"Come on, John. _Please?_" Kitty's brown eyes grew rounder and more begging.

When he didn't answer and instead picked up his pace again, Kitty unsurprisingly decided to tail after him, forcing her single-handedly chosen topic of conversation onto him.

"Gabriel said –" she paused to jog to keep up with his long strides, "Gabriel said, that something happened between you and Eden."

John could hear it, in the tone of her voice, that she meant something good. Yes, something good _had_ happened. It was, however, not so good that other people – namely _GabrielandKitty _– knew of the event in question.

Seriously, how close could a brother and sister get?

"I think it's nice. I know," Kitty paused awkwardly, "I know it's none of my business."

"Yet here you are, talking about it," John added flatly.

"I _know_," the brunette emphasised, "But can't you at least share my high here? I mean, we've had it pretty bad for a while. You, more than anyone. And me as well, having to deal with your moody ass…"

"Look," John interjected. "If you're looking for a thank you, or a fucking high-five – you're in the wrong place. If you find out things about me from your boyfriend, be a doll and keep it to yourself, alright? Because as clever as it may seem to share the gossip about me _with me_, it's really not. So just," – he gestured meaningfully for her to discard herself – "go away."

But she didn't go away. Not immediately. First she had to give him a rather patient, and slightly patronizing look. The kind you give to children who seem a little daft. Those who ask stupid questions. And eat boogers between meals.

"She really likes you, you know. Don't fuck it up," Kitty told him calmly, even smiling a little before pausing to take a small step backwards, "Or you'll have us all killed."

**Second Day in Eden**

"What are we doing?"

John looked up at the sound of the familiarly smooth hoarseness of her voice.

"I'm getting acquainted with a new feeling," he answered her, motioning for her to sit with him on the couch in the downstairs lounge.

Eden grimaced at his comment, and John knew that she was thinking along the lines of bowels being filled with butterflies, increased heart rate and sweaty palms. Snorting softly at how easily he could read distaste in her delicate features, he lazily gestured towards the foosball table that stood on the other side of the jointed rec room.

There, by the abandoned game, stood Bobby and Marie, engrossed in what seemed to be the most complicated make-out session in the history of mankind. John, had he been the more eloquent and chatty person, would have described it as Bobby literally trying to bat around Marie's ovaries with his tongue. Even tilting his head to the side, John couldn't quite figure out how – or more importantly _why_ – anyone would like to delve so deeply into someone else's mouth.

Don't get him wrong, he enjoyed slipping girls the tongue, too. But at the end of the day, he preferred having it back as well.

"I call it 'gross fascination'," John explained after Eden had realized what was going on.

"It doesn't seem very comfortable," she admitted, wrinkling her nose at the ongoing scene.

John only tensed slightly when Eden leaned back in her seat to rest against his side.

"Wouldn't imagine it to be very hygienic either," he murmured with a light chuckle.

A warm hand slipped to lay on the top of his thigh.

"Oh that doesn't seem very – that wasn—Oi…bad move."

Eden sniggered at Bobby's brave attempt of nibbling Marie's bottom lip.

"Amateurs," John scoffed.

The hand squeezed slightly.

"Where were you yesterday?" she asked suddenly.

She'd changed the topic. Without warning. John had learned that she often did that. He didn't mind, really. Because it was a pretty smart way of getting the most frank answer out of whoever she was talking to.

"I was avoiding people. Didn't go too well," he answered simply. "Why? You miss me?"

He could afford to be a little cocky.

Eden sniffed in obvious amusement. Shiny strands of lighter auburn hair – the ones right at the very front of her head – had fallen from being tucked behind her ears. Watching them just barely touching her cheek, he gave in to the urge of brushing them away. It was a casual move, a comfortable gesture. One that said 'Hey, I think you're pretty swell. Let me show you how much I like hanging out with you by removing these pesky strands of hair from your face.' John was silently glad that gestures saved him from actually having to utter such sentimental nonsense.

"It does the heart good to miss someone sometimes," she answered, not at all sounding like herself. Not like the one who had grimaced at the misinterpretation just moments earlier.

"Excuse me?" John voiced his bewilderment.

"I'm not going soft on you, idiot. I'm just sharing the wisdom. Now come on before I go blind from seeing that sucking disaster."

The hand on his thigh slipped away to grab a firm hold of his forearm, pulling him off the couch, through the lounge, the kitchen, the entrance, up the stairs and into his room.

**Third Day in Eden**

"John."

"No."

"No, seriously-"

"No."

"Come on, just say—"

"Gabby, no. Stop. Just leave it."

"No, _you_ stop," Gabriel said more forcefully, snapping head up from his bed to point an accusing finger at him.

"I don't want to!" John protested loudly in his armchair.

"Don't be such a baby. Just admit it. You've fallen in love with my sister. It's alright. You have the Gabriel McKenna stamp of approval. Honestly, I'd rather it be you than that Ricky Silverstone—"

"What Ricky Silverstone?"

Suddenly, John was all ears, attention on max and lighter ready to flambé.

Gabriel gave him a flat look.

"Nothing. Just sit your arse back down and relax. He's a loser. Some bloke Eddie met though counselling."

John frowned at his friend.

"Counselling? I didn't know Eddie'd had counselling."

"The way you screwed her up? And with me being a fucking cripple? Of course she needed counselling. But anyway, back to what we were talking about."

"You know what, I think there's somewhere else I need to be."

John rose from his seat, dusting off the frost that hung to the stiffened creases of his jeans.

"Right. Off to sex my sister. Fine, see you later then," Gabriel said casually, although still gaining the desired effect when John's face contorted in a deeply displeased expression.

"What the---?! I can't… You are one _sick_ family, you know that? Fucking dis_gusting!_"

**Fourth Day in Eden**

"Eddie?"

"Mm?"

John stilled the fingers that had drawn spirals and circles up and down the soft curve of her waist and hip. Her skin was impossibly soft there. It was, of course, wonderful all over, but he'd taken a strange liking to that place, often noticing how his hands strayed to settle or gently caress there. Meanwhile, Eden had found the nape of his neck particularly fascinating. He never bothered to ask why.

"There's something I need to talk to you about."

She lifted her head from his chest, her cheek making a soft sucking sound when it left his warm skin. Giving him a half-questioning half-warning look, she silently asked him if he was going to make another attempt at lame post-romp conversation.

Shaking his head, he gave her hip a small squeeze of reassurance.

"No. I'd just like to ask if you could please not share every detail of our private activities with your brother. You know, the guy who happens to double as my best friend, in case it slipped your mind."

Eden gave a short laugh, her warm breath setting a patch of his naked chest on fire (a/n: not literally. He's not _that _awesome).

"I don't tell him _everything_, John," Eden began to explain, laying her head back down, "He's my twin brother. He just _knows_. I'm not as good at the silent reading as he is, but we do share some kind of weird…you know." She gestured flimsily in the air to fill in the words she couldn't find.

"Supernatural powers," John joked.

"Nah, I only use those on you," Eden quickly retorted, earning herself the hard jab of a finger in her side.

**Fifth Day in Eden**

Einstein was back. But only for the night.

Kitty was spending some so-called "quality time" with John.

They both knew that it was only because Kitty was feeling out of it, because something was going on with Gabriel, which required him asking her if Eden could take her slot in the visiting schedule, which evidently pointed to something big. Because no-one ever switched around in the schedule. No supposed emergency had thus far required a switch. Not even the time Kitty had actually openly announced her need for some "sexual healing" (causing John to nearly gag on his own damn tongue).

But there she was, sitting on John's bedroom floor, hugging her pillow featuring Albert Einstein to her chest. And looking mightily disoriented while doing so.

"It's been a while since we did this. Talked…sat…" Kitty murmured absently, half of her face buried in the pillow.

"Yeah…" John stretched the syllables until his breath ran out and there was only a tense sort of silence left.

"It's about what Dr. McCoy and Storm have been doing," Kitty suddenly said in a rush. As if pulling off a band aid.

John looked at her searchingly, from sitting strangely properly on the edge of his bed.

"The whole…cure, thing," Kitty continued, not looking at him. "I think he's scared. He won't talk to me about it, but I can tell that he's starting to feel the pressure. I mean, it _is_ a pretty big thing. Right? …right, John?"

Blinking, he refocused on her tiny frame, seeing her wide and expecting eyes as if for the first time.

"Yeah…right."

He didn't want to discuss it with her. He didn't want to discuss it with anyone. His past was littered with empty syringes of that poison – The Cure. And he liked keeping the mess there, behind him. He was in a good place now and so far denial had done the job nicely. If he only concentrated on Eden, on getting comfortable and familiar with the feeling of not being alone – everything would be alright.

It would be just fine.

**Sixth Day in Eden**

"John!" Eden shrieked, slapping him on the arm, causing a spattering of extra water to hit them both in the face.

"I was getting water in my mouth, you sadist!"

"Well you spat it all over me!"

"You're already wet! What difference does it make?!"

Standing in the heavy downpour, several hours after everyone else's curfew, John felt that there was far too much arguing and far too little lip action for his liking. They had been "exploring the grounds" when suddenly the ominously grey sky had torn apart and promptly decided to shower them with a steady rain. Wearing already heavy jackets, they were by now several pounds heavier when soaked completely through. But neither of them seemed to care when lips met and tongues began to slide past rows of chattering teeth.

Well, Eden obviously minded when John had to save himself from nearly drowning, by emptying his mouth on her.

"It contained your _spit_!" she argued, walking ahead towards the mansion.

"Oh come on! Like you haven't had worse on you," John retorted, immediately regretting it, even as the words were in the process of leaving his mouth.

Whipping her head around, and almost comically slapping herself in the face with her long hair, she gave him a hard glare.

"_You_ are in no position to speak. You should just shut up and…and shut up!"

Right.

Forcing himself into silence, he obediently followed her up the muddy pathway and through the front door where they proceeded to leave a sloppily wet trail after themselves.

John didn't want to be the kind of guy who openly assumed things like these, but he was privately willing to put good money that Eden's red week was just around the bend. Sure, she was more or less a fucking nuisance anyway. But to explode in a distinctly childish and utterly ridiculous fit, that had to be more than business as usual. There were some serious hormonal imbalances going on, and they all shared the same capital-lettered roof called PMS.

"I want you back here in an hour," Eden ordered as she stood in the open doorway of his room.

"Oh hey, you're back," Kitty popped her head out of Jubilee's room a few doors down.

"Wait, what? Eddie, that's _my_ room," John pointed out, choosing to ignore Kitty for the moment, and being careful not to raise his voice. Not for the sake of his neighbours, but for the preservation of his life.

"Yeah, well that's what you get for spitting on me," Eden replied snippily.

"Uh, okay, I don't want to know," Kitty interjected with a grimace, but went on to say, "But actually, now that you're kicked out, Gabriel said he wanted to talk to you. It was important."

"Yeah," Eden said coolly, "Go visit my brother."

"I'm fucking soaked, I'll freeze to death!" John exclaimed, finally throwing caution to the wind thanks to the growing frustration caused by the two present females.

Watching as Eden pursed her lips and disappeared into his room, he soon got a bundle of clothes chucked at his head, followed by the slamming of his own door in his own goddamned face.

After throwing a half-assed fireball at Kitty and then literally changing into dry clothes in the staircase, he grumpily made his way down to the sublevel chambers.

When he arrived to Gabriel's room, the black-haired young man was sitting wide awake on his bed, despite it being well after midnight. His face was hard and serious, his hands running repeatedly over the closely cropped hair on his head. Shown to his usual seat, John felt an uncomfortable swelling in the pit of his stomach.

It was never a good sign when Gabriel didn't say a lot.

So when he finally spoke, John almost wished he would have had the chance to prepare himself more.

"Tell me what you said that day, John. When you got so angry with me – with Storm. I need to know. I need you to tell me everything; what you've seen, what you've heard, what you feel. I…I need to know my options," Gabriel said, his voice so levelled and controlled that John found it horribly clashing with the troubled expression that had stuck to the other boy's handsome features.

"John, I want you to tell me about the cure."

Six. He lasted six days with Eden.

Six days before all hell broke loose.


End file.
